The Observer Effect
by d1x1lady
Summary: After Tony Stark outs himself as Iron Man on live television, he acquires a magical stalker in the form of a bored (female) Harry Potter, who has emerged from the Veil of Death in a world without wizards. A cat-and-mouse game ensues when Stark's curiosity drives him to ever-increasing lengths to capture his invisible benefactor, who struggles with maintaining her distance.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: To my eternal sadness, I do not own Harry Potter, Iron Man or The Avengers.**  
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Note: This story will be updated infrequently because I'm currently working on a really long Harry Potter/Avengers crossover, where Harry travels to an alternate universe and develops a deep, unusually co-dependent friendship with post-Avengers Loki. Together, they explore the boundaries of their different types of magic and have crazy adventures on Earth and different planets, trying to sort out Loki's enemies and steal a golden apple of immortality. I do plan to finish _The Observer Effect,_ and have the plot mapped out and several segments written...It just won't be speedy...probably.

Also, I apologize to those of you that hate Harry being female. I just liked the idea of it better for this story. In (most of) my (unfinished and yet to be posted) Harry/Loki stories, Harry will be male. There's also some bashing of HP characters in the first couple chapters of the story. What can I say? I was in a dark mood when I wrote the beginning, and have since lightened up. Besides, in order for Laurel (fem. Harry) to make the jump to another dimension, she needed to have nothing to keep her in the wizarding world.

**Chapter 1:****Dreams**

Laurel gasped and woke with a start, shakily reaching for the glass of water that rested on her bedside table. Gray morning light filtered into the dingy room, and she flopped back onto the mattress in irritation. It was earlier than she had intended to wake up, but too late to justify going back to sleep_. Perfect_.

She stalked into the bathroom barefooted, wincing at the cold, before she turned on the old-fashioned tap and liberally splashed her face with water. Glancing up at her reflection, she felt a moment's triumph that she had finally taken corrective measures for her eyes and done away with the hideous, ill-fitting glasses she had grown up with. She had had to wait to act until things had calmed down after the war and she was no longer under the Dursleys' authority.

Her aunt and uncle had always taken a vindictive pleasure in making her ugly. They had starved her, and for years her figure had suffered for it. Even now, she was far slighter than her mother had supposedly been. Lily…her flame-haired, peach-skinned, voluptuous, perfect ten of a mother…a legend, whom she had loved with a lost child's devotion, but who had only been as real to her as a character in a fairy story. She knew that she didn't measure up to her mother. Professor Snape had made _that_ clear enough during her years of schooling, although the bitter spy had hardly been the only one to remark that she had fallen far short of James' comedy and Lily's beauty.

At the time, it hadn't helped that her Aunt Petunia had forced her to keep her inky hair cropped short—the more it had stuck up all over her head like an untidy boy's, the happier the loathsome woman had been. As a child, it had often grown back overnight, but the consequences the next day had terrified her so much that she had eventually managed to suppress the tingling that heralded a hairstyle change. Laurel had only realized much later that her hair growth had been evidence of metamorphmagus ability. Her grandmother had been a Black, and the rare talent ran in their family. She had probably done irrevocable harm to the gift by forcibly subduing it as a child. Although she experimented now, and had coaxed out a few minor changes, she doubted that she would ever be a full-fledged shape-shifter. It irritated her that her relatives had deprived her of such a useful, precious ability, and that they had succeeded to a degree in their avowed attempts to "beat the freak out of her."

Due to the hair and glasses, her looks had been compared to James' far more than Lily's. Before she returned for summer holidays every year, Laurel had been forced to chop off whatever length she had acquired during the school year in the lavatory of the Hogwarts Express. She couldn't remember ever descending the train without the sound of her classmates jeering at her. But she had had no choice. Her relatives would have beaten her savagely if they had known she'd grown her hair out even a little. She had learned to choose her battles at a very young age, once she had realized that no one would be coming to save her.

Laurel had become skilled at managing on her own. She knew how to hoard and ration food and manage hunger, which might have been why she had been able to continue the horcrux hunt long after Ron and Hermione had abandoned it. She knew the best places to hide, how to keep secrets, and when to run away. She had learned early to fear the cruelty of adults, but had come to expect it and inured herself to it. All of these lessons she knew by rote before she turned eleven, but it was only then that she was exposed to ruthless manipulations for the first time, although it took years for her to recognize them for what they were. _That_ lesson she accredited solely to Albus Dumbledore.

But she shook off the coldness that came from letting her mind dwell on the deceased wizard, and shivered as she slowly walked to her dresser to place something else in her bottomless bag. She had tossed in her favorite bedroom slippers three days ago. Now she would deposit her much-prized photo album. Over the last few months, this had become a ritual. She was slowly severing ties, placing an item or two a day into her ridiculously over-the-top bug-out bag. But this gradual, almost subconscious good-bye to her current life was the only way she knew to make the dreams loosen their searing hold on her heart. She still felt the tug, and the longing, but it was more manageable. The dark-haired witch had never told anyone else, but she had been feeling this way ever since she had destroyed the horcrux lodged in her scar. She no longer felt tethered to her world, and it was an extremely disconcerting feeling. But tonight she finally planned to do something about it. Still groggy from her dreams, her heart clenched as she suddenly remembered her plans. It was well that she had risen early, because today would be a busy day, filled with many preparations.

For the last seven years, following the end of the wizarding war and her mastery of the Deathly Hallows, Laurel Potter had been having dreams about the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. She recalled the whispers that had beckoned to her the day Sirius had fallen through, and they had grown more insistent over time. She would wake up in the middle of the night, heart beating erratically and her soul filled with a desperate longing to see the other side. She gathered that it was a gateway, but for some reason she couldn't explain, _knew_ that something more than death awaited her should she pass through. The whispers had been indistinct at first, but they were clearer now, a siren song of other worlds, new life, and a fresh start. They lured and taunted her. "_How can you be Master of Death, when you have the heart of a slave?_" they called. In the end, she never knew whether the voice was destiny or some deeply buried part of her, but it did its work well. The truth of the accusation burned through her like a purifying coal, and she finally found the strength of will to match her discontent.

Laurel felt trapped, and when she was honest with herself, admitted that she had never felt otherwise. The closest she had come to freedom was flying, but even that had merely been an illusion. It had been a privilege, one that had often been taken away from her. She had grown accustomed to her cupboard, and only her handler had changed. First it had been the despicable Dursleys, then Dumbledore, and now the Ministry of Magic. All seemed to operate under the assumption that she belonged to them. And she had not done nearly enough to prove them wrong. Becoming withdrawn and quietly choking on her own misery had hardly improved her situation. But being the perfect drone had not worked out for her either. She had been sleepwalking for years with her hands tied behind her back and never known it. These dreams had changed her, had struck a vital part of her and drawn blood-no small feat-as she was more stone than flesh these days. But perhaps the main reason she yearned for whatever was on the other side of that door, was due to the feeling that it was secret, special, and just for her. Perhaps best of all, it didn't have a damn thing to do with anyone else's 'greater good'. Death treats all equally…_unless one is its master_.

The dreams had reached a crescendo, and she was having them every night now, but she had never told anyone about them. Firstly, she had no one she trusted enough to tell, and secondly, because she didn't want to do anything to end the dreams, even though she woke up every morning disappointed, full of unfulfilled desire. She cherished the thought that, maybe if she made it to the other side of the Veil, she would finally feel whole, managing to shake off the chains and the gnawing emptiness.

These dreams felt nothing like the visions from Voldemort during her fifth year of school. Those had felt…like an echo of someone else's happiness, someone else's determination. They had been tainted and she had felt like a helpless spectator involved against her will. In comparison, these felt like…the inevitability of prophecy…like the heavens had rolled back and revealed her path, her fate.

She had put off acting on the dreams for a while, although she had begun to pack for a long journey, just an item or two in her bottomless bag a day, but it had felt like progress. Laurel bitterly recalled the night she had realized that things weren't going to get better. It had happened about a month ago, on her twenty-fifth birthday. Hermione, Ron and Ginny had been visiting. Hermione, as usual, had been scolding her about her about her irresponsibility and disregard for the common good, while subtly trying to steer her towards a marriage with Percy Weasley, who had irritated her from the moment they'd met, when Ron had spoken up. "Look, it's not really much of a choice anyway. Dumbledore swore mum a wizard's oath that you would marry one of her sons before your thirtieth birthday, and he was your magical guardian at the time, so I reckon it's still binding. Percy's the only one of us not married—you know he's been waiting for you, right, mate? He's been giving you time while he concentrated on his career. He'd hoped you'd do the same, but, well…see how that's turned out," he murmured snidely.

Speechless over what she had just heard, Laurel had stood frozen for a few beats, before Hermione piped up, breezing over the revelation of her 'betrothal', as if it were common knowledge among the Order of the Phoenix members. Perhaps it had been. "He doesn't mean that how it sounds," Hermione began condescendingly. "We're happy that you have a new-found interest in learning, but, well, everyone expected you to become an Auror, and to cooperate more with the Ministry. You haven't even let me write your biography…."

"Half a minute," Laurel interrupted her, turning towards Ron and Ginny. "Were you serious? Your parents and Dumbledore secretly arranged a marriage for me?"

"Not secretly," Ginny huffed. "Everybody knew about it. We thought you did too. Why else do you never date anybody? Why do you think we always talk him up to you? And why do you think Order members always look at Percy and ask his advice when your name comes up? We never imagined that Dumbledore didn't tell you."

"Right. Not a secret, but somehow I never got wind of it. It never came up…in the past decade or so?" Laurel said evenly, but the silverware was beginning to clatter on the table, and she knew that if she didn't get herself back under control quickly, she would release a vicious wave of accidental magic.

The others looked slightly alarmed, and Ginny made the mistake of meeting her eyes. Laurel had become a fairly accomplished legilimens. She had grown adept at occlumency after her wide open mind had gotten Sirius killed, and legilimency had been the natural next step. For her, it had been by far the easier discipline to learn. Acquiring the skill had actually been an accident. And so when Ginny looked at her in alarm, Laurel saw conniving whispers, covetousness, and conspiracy in the depths of her eyes. She had seen enough, because if they all knew, and none had warned her, then they were _all _guilty.

"May the punishment for oath-breaking be added to Dumbledore's sentence in hell. I'll speak to a solicitor and curse-breaker about this situation, but your family should know that a marriage is _not_ on the table. There will be no bargaining. You had better hope that I am not bound by that old fool's words, because I'll see Percy dead before I risk my magic. If I find that he is a danger to me, I will _end_ him," she whispered. "Now get out."

They eyed each other anxiously, completely unnerved by their erstwhile friend's flinty bearing. They had seen glimpses of her ruthlessness during the war, but it was frightening to witness her usual friendly attitude towards them vanish and be replaced with an icy, almost alien focus. Ron drained his firewhiskey and dropped the tumbler on the shaking kitchen table before he warily nodded and headed for the front door. He trailed Ginny, but Hermione hesitated. She reached towards the dark-haired girl, but Laurel flinched away. Hermione gave her most put-upon sigh and said, "Laurel, don't make a mistake. You're practically a member of the Weasley family already. This would only make it legal. Besides, would a husband really be such a bad thing? Percy is very responsible. You could use somebody to make the rules for you. Ron and I can't always be there to get you out of trouble-"

Laurel wanted to rant and rave at her, to list her grievances and curse her unrecognizable, when all at once, her anger evaporated, leaving her coldly amused. Her 'friends' didn't know it, but they had just given her the sign she had been waiting for. She had been holding her breath on the edge of the precipice for months, but after the discovery of this new conspiracy, even the least adventurous part of her demanded she act.

"_Always be there?_ That's the most amusing thing you've ever said, you humorless, pedantic, self-righteous, treacherous hypocrite," she answered mockingly. "You really should look up the Ministry's laws on bigamy, and see if they won't allow _you_ to take on Percy. He's practically the male_ you_ after all. I can't imagine that you're not soul mates. And it's not as if anyone doubts you're bossy enough to manage two husbands. In fact, if Ron and Percy are able to split the burden between them, they'll probably both live longer."

Preparing to interrupt, Hermione placed her hands on her hips in her swottiest pose, and Laurel allowed herself to feel infuriated by it. She had always found the other girl abrasive, but had repressed her annoyance with her for years. Well, it seemed that tonight was to be a night for all sorts of revelations, Laurel thought, as she added with vicious satisfaction, "If only I had a time machine, I could go back and refrain from intervening when you were almost eaten by a troll, because all I did was interfere in a natural process. You managed to become a little shit all on your own without any troll to assist….It just took longer. So congratulations, I guess, on turning into _Ministry material_."

Hermione puffed up like a toad, reminding her of Umbridge for one hilarious moment, and Ron, who had hesitated at the door, turned back and snarled, "Don't talk to my wife like that!"

"Oh, I'm _sorry_, Ron, I don't mean to disparage your _investment_. By the way, how much did you pay for her? Because under the table deals are apparently how the men in your family get their wives. I imagine that the prize money from that Order of Merlin first class that I lobbied for came in handy. I was good for _that_, at least," she rejoined nastily.

"I earned that Order of Merlin! …And 'Mione's not some _whore_," he retorted hotly.

She blinked at his utter blindness. "Neither. Am. I," she intoned, and then sneered, "and the hell you earned that award! You got it for being publicly recognized as the best friend of the _Girl-Who-Lived_ and the brother of two heroes, not through your own brave and selfless actions. For Merlin's sake, you and your wife abandoned me when I was hunting for horcruxes. I was alone, injured and wandless-"

"I thought you were over that!" the ginger exclaimed in embarrassment and outrage.

In a soft, outraged voice she whispered, "I will never '_get over that_'. I may be stubborn, but even I can learn a lesson if it's repeated enough. And that lesson is that you were never there when it counted. You would take the first couple of steps down the path with me, but always turn back at the first opportunity."

Ron looked momentarily abashed, before he scratched his head and mumbled, "Hey, what about the troll? I was with you all the way on _that. And_ in the Department of Mysteries_._"

"Look in my eyes and tell me that I had anything to do with the troll. You tagged along because of your own guilt and you know it. Besides, that happened back when you were eleven and still had potential," she hissed.

He flinched, and she added, "As far as the Dept. of Mysteries fiasco goes, it doesn't take a trained psychologist to recognize that _peer pressure_ was driving your actions that day."

Ron scowled, but didn't disagree. "You know," he said coldly, "I don't know what's happened to you. You used to know how to get along. If you don't get your act together and stop being so moody and hateful, I won't even _want _you to be a member of my family."

Gasping out a bitter laugh, the dark-haired girl looked between husband and wife wildly, noting their thin lips and pitiless eyes. "You fool," she whispered to Ron. "I was _never _meant to become a member of your family. Dumbledore swore that oath to your mother with his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek. He promised to deliver me over to your family with one hand while he was busily plotting my death with the other. He never intended for me to survive the war. He was stringing you along with that vow, and hedging his bets. It was all about control. He liked the idea of controlling me through the Weasleys. On the off-chance that I survived a little past majority, I couldn't be allowed to escape his machinations. My new _husband_ would keep me under his influence and the Weasleys could inherit my fortune when I died, as the old bastard had ensured I would. Then the combined riches of the Blacks and Potters would belong to Dumbledore's most faithful lackeys, for him to disseminate at his whims."

"How can you spread such lies about Dumbledore? You know that he always cared for you!" Hermione interrupted, too outraged to stay silent.

"Yes, he cared for me just like a farmer cares for the fatted calf!" she snarled.

Ron and Hermione shared a glance that seemed to say, "She's mental. There's no talking to her."

Giving her most patronizing sigh, Hermione said, "Look, Laurel, you have been overreacting and insulting us all night. Go to bed early tonight, and maybe tomorrow you'll remember who your friends are."

With grim finality, and a thread of sadness running through her words, Laurel replied simply, "I have no friends."

She had intoned the words as one would a vow, and, before the others could utter a rejoinder, an irresistible wave of sheer magic forced them out the front door in a rare show of power. Moving immediately to change the wards, Laurel suddenly felt very tired, and slumped down against the wall in the shadowy main hall. She had long suspected that something was wrong in her friendships, but she had never had any friends before, and so had ignored her instincts, and the thousand little betrayals. But she didn't think that friends kept each other in the dark, or knew about abuse and didn't tell anyone, or _allowed each other to be sold into marriage and never warned about it._

A month later, as she remembered that ugly scene, Laurel scowled and pulled a brush through her long hair with unnecessary roughness. Her festering resentment had finally boiled over that day, and she had said nasty, terrible things to them. She didn't regret a word.

None of her erstwhile friends had dropped by in the past several weeks, although a few letters had come and been burned unopened. Molly hadn't dared to send a howler, although no doubt she had been tempted. Laurel had kept far too busy to care about her isolation. In fact, she had welcomed it. There was officially nothing left here for her. Her friends had fallen by the wayside. They didn't like who she had become, and didn't need her anymore. She had no family, and the Ministry was about to make life very difficult for her. She couldn't stay here.

Today, Laurel would finally go forth and seek her fortune. She felt a tingle of excitement as she quickly dressed and shrank her bottomless bag so she could wear it around her neck. She needed to visit her vaults, and then wait until nightfall for her attempt on the Ministry.

It had taken a month to sell off her properties quietly, and Narcissa Malfoy had secretly signed the contract for Grimmauld Place the day before. The blonde aristocrat would drop by in a few hours to take possession, and so Laurel wandered through the dreary halls one last time, searching for anything she might have forgotten. She had planned and prepared, but knew that in all adventures, chance played a roll. Her odds of success were slim, but she had worked with less.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2****: ****Curtains**

Laurel knew she was being selfish, and the deepest, most honest part of her gloried in that knowledge. In her bottomless bag, she carried more tomes of wizarding knowledge than any single person had ever possessed before. She had taken the cumulative works of the Black, Potter and Peverell estates, besides everything from the Chamber of Secrets and whatever she could buy. She carried enough potions, ingredients and enchanted artifacts to outfit a new wizard colony if she wished. It seemed the height of selfishness to risk so much lore and so many notable artifacts on a mad gamble, but Laurel had had quite enough of prostrating herself before the 'greater good'.

She smiled grimly as she recalled how satisfying it had been to close her accounts and empty her Gringotts vaults of every last galleon earlier in the day. The goblins had gnashed their teeth in fury at losing so much treasure, because Laurel was the lone survivor of several ancient and most noble houses. Anticipating their interference, she had done this at the end of the day when the Ministry of Magic switched over to a skeleton crew. She knew that the irate goblins wouldn't be able to get through all the red tape and achieve a hearing with the minister to complain until she was long gone. It had always irked her that the wizards gave the goblins total sway over their treasure, not realizing how illogical it was to cede economic control to a race that hated and resented them and periodically started bloody wars, but logic seemed to be anathema to most wizards.

Laurel had prepared nearly everything well in advance. She gazed speculatively at the vial of Felix Felicis that had been dearly bought from Draco Malfoy, who had earned his potions mastery after the war. She had made a deal with him to return his wand and sell Grimmauld Place to his mother for a pittance. She knew that she had lost a fortune on the deal, but had needed to dispose of the house quietly without the Ministry's interference. And it was not as though just anyone could brew liquid luck either. With a sense of awe, she unstoppered the vial and drained the golden draught to the last drop. Smiling triumphantly, she felt the magic flow through her, clearly mapping the path before her.

She had a great store of Muggle money and clothes hidden away, and all her letters written—not that there were many to send. Even before the war with Voldemort had ended, she had begun to realize that something fishy was going on. By fifth year, it was more than a shadow of suspicion in her mind. So many circumstances didn't add up. She had felt so isolated as a child, and once she discovered magic and her celebrity status, wondered if wizards had been responsible for it. She had never received any wizard mail or visits from child services, even though she was the very picture of a neglected, starved, abused child. Several times a concerned primary school teacher had complained to the muggle authorities about the Dursleys, only for the inquiry to be dropped and forgotten by all parties, even her aunt and uncle. The too-curious teacher was always displaced to another school.

She had not known about her wealth and position in the wizarding world until she found out by accident when she was sixteen and slipped her Dumbledore-appointed guards to visit Gringotts, which she had _conveniently_ been kept away from for most of her schooling. She finally realized why all the purebloods seemed so disgusted with her. Her ignorance truly was inexcusable for an heiress of an old family.

The evidence continued to mount and her rage to build. Dumbledore had been manipulating her from the beginning. She had allowed herself to be molded into a martyr that would lay down her life for the greater good without question or hesitation. Why should she hesitate, after all? She had never been taught to value herself, and she was pretty damn sure that no one else valued her. The press and student body had always gotten away with saying horrendous things about her, and never once been called to account. She had not even been able to defend herself because Dumbledore had refused to allow her to contact a solicitor or to make any kind of exclusive arrangement with a reporter. None of his teachers had ever chastised the hordes of students wearing 'Potter Stinks' badges. In fact, now that she thought about it, no one had _ever_ protected her or put her first. At the end of her first two school years, she had approached the old fraud-hat in hand, so to speak—and begged not to be returned to the Dursleys. He had just twinkled at her and told her she must be exaggerating their treatment.

Her godfather, Sirius Black, who had supposedly had such an epic bromance with her father, had never made any attempt to clear his name and get custody of her. He had taken Dumbledore's word that nothing could be changed, although the old man had been the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot when he had been tossed into prison without a trial. All of her trust in her former headmaster sickened her now. But she had had few options, and even though she had tried to peel herself away slowly from his influence as she grew older, it had been a nearly impossible task. She had not missed the guards stationed outside Privet Drive from her fifth year onward. And since the blood wards were supposedly so impenetrable, why had Dumbledore's people been there? And if they were not needed to keep threats out, then she could only conclude that they were there to keep her in. Confined, helpless, untrained and ignorant until they had need of her. Her heart bubbled hot with hatred even now when she thought about it.

She had chosen the wrong allies—although when she thought back to Hagrid's Dumbledore-glorifying introduction to the wizarding world and Molly Weasley's dubious appearance outside the train platform screaming about Muggles, she wondered just how many of her choices had been engineered. That easy, uncritical belief, she thought, was a mistake she would never make again. She would be more discriminating in her choice of allies in future—find someone with loyalty and ability to match hers. Someone she could learn to trust.

After a dying Severus Snape had finally tipped Dumbledore's hand, revealing that she had always been marked for slaughter, her eyes were fully opened, and all the little things that had seemed strange at the time fell into place. She had never been given a chance to choose her side, because Dumbledore had known that if Voldemort discovered she housed his horcrux, he would value her above all other living creatures, and then the blasted prophecy would remain unfulfilled. But once Laurel finally had all the information she needed, it was far too late to turn back, and she didn't much care for survival at that point anyway, so she had marched into the forest with a taunt on her lips and her head held high, and the Dark Lord had obliged her with a streak of fatal green light. At least, it should have been fatal. When she discovered later that she had become master of the Deathly Hallows, she had laughed for a long time, her laughter tinged with hysteria. Everyone had fawned over her when she finally struck Voldemort down, but she had gently extricated herself from all of the overly familiar, repulsively clinging arms and apparated away.

Laurel had tossed away the Resurrection Stone and snapped the Elder Wand, but at midnight, as she sat staring into the hearth at Grimmauld Place, all three Hallows had appeared before her, haloed with light and throbbing with untapped power. As they approached her, she had panicked and shouted out that Death could have them, but at that pronouncement, they had glowed even hotter and one-by-one entered her chest. It had felt like waves of warmth and potential washing over her, and when it was over, she knew that she was changed. She was something more than a witch, but less than a goddess. Perhaps she was immortal—certainly much more powerful than before-and she had already been the most powerful witch of her generation.

For the next seven years, Laurel had studied magic. She earned masteries in defense and transfiguration and found she could concentrate better than she had ever been able to before. She took up the ladyship of her houses and explored her new powers. She had become very reclusive, and the press was beginning to clamor for her to marry and have an heir.

"No doubt the Ministry is behind this outpouring of public 'concern'," she had thought viciously.

Minister Shacklebolt had wanted her to be the poster girl for his reforms, but Laurel would never again allow herself to be used that way. She knew that his administration, filled with Dumbledore loyalists, wanted to bind her to the British wizarding world, and was currently drafting inheritance, marriage and immigration laws with her in mind.

Three years ago, she had made a fatal mistake when she had blurted out in company that she wouldn't mind resettling somewhere less backward than wizarding Britain. She really should have known something was up when Greece had refused to renew her visa. Her request to take additional classes after she'd finished her transfiguration mastery at the School of Athens had been denied, and so she had reluctantly made her way back to London, not yet realizing that the noose was tightening. But it became obvious that something was afoot when none of the best schools for enchanting would grant her entry. She hadn't been able to travel anywhere since then…legally. Her applications kept getting lost, delayed, and refused on technicalities. She suspected that her _dear friend_ Hermione, who worked as head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, had "let slip" that Britain would frown on any attempts by other countries to acquire the Girl-Who-Lived.

But now that Laurel was reaching her potential and enjoying a taste of freedom, she would rather have gnawed her own legs off than wind up in someone else's power again. She had traveled a bit incognito, but was so well-known in every wizarding community she visited that she had no peace. No matter how clever her glamors, her 'friends' and agents of the British Ministry had always unmasked and embarrassed her sooner or later. There were only so many wizarding enclaves in the world, making it very hard for someone of her power and talent to remain unnoticed for long.

The constant bleating demands for her to serve 'the people' had sickened her over time. She hadn't known better as a child, but now she resented the intrusion, their desire for her to become their mascot—the stuffed sacrificial lamb paraded about on a pike—a mutton kabob for the masses.

The disaffected witch entered the atrium of the Ministry, making herself invisible with a thought, now that Death's own cloak had fused with her magic. Laurel thought she would feel nostalgic as she looked about this world for the last time, but all she felt was a clawing desperation to get away. She detested her place in this wizarding community, where she was alternately scapegoat and sacrifice—depending on the needs and disposition of the many.

When she approached the Veil that had swallowed up her godfather, she didn't feel the same heartbreak and nameless terror she had experienced in its presence before. The Resurrection Stone had given her some closure at least. Now she eyed the archway speculatively. She had a growing suspicion that she was unable to die as Master of Death, and if this was true, whither would the Veil send her? The possibilities were limitless. She could float deathlessly in a void until madness took her, be sent straight on to the afterlife, be relocated to another point on the globe, or another time, or another planet or universe. Or perhaps she would die after all. But Laurel had always been one that trusted her instincts, and hers whispered that this would be the best thing ever to happen to her.

The witch wanted to leave a message for those that had hijacked her life, do something dramatic enough to rival Fred and George's firework-filled escape from Hogwarts during her fifth year. But she was tired and didn't want to go to the effort. She didn't need anyone's guilt, amazement, outrage, or any other emotion that could be temporarily manufactured. And so in the end, all she did was take a deep breath, shake the metaphorical dust off of her metaphorical sandals, and step through the curtain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Centaurs**

She blinked in alarm at the shrill blast of a horn and the sudden bright daylight, and stumbled backwards onto the curb just in time to avoid an oncoming bus. Looking around her in bewilderment, Laurel realized that she was standing in the middle of muggle London dressed in full wizarding regalia. She glanced about her, swallowing bitter disappointment as she spotted people wearing the same fashions that they had been wearing before she had stepped through the Veil. So she wasn't a time traveler, then. At least, if she was one, she hadn't traveled many years. She cursed quietly, ducking into an alley to cast a glamour over herself. It would be just her luck if she had gone back in time to when Voldemort and Dumbledore were still a problem. But if that was the case, she would be able to handle it at least. She had survived them both once before, and now that she was older and had knowledge of the future, could certainly outmaneuver them if she had to.

She warily stepped back onto the street to orient herself. The only thing worse than time traveling would be ending up right where she had started. The Veil killed those that entered it—she had been able to sense Death all over it. But since she was now his master according to the legend of the Hallows, perhaps it had rejected her, simply spitting her out in nearby London.

The young witch needed to know for sure, and so she gathered her courage and apparated to Charing Cross Road. She walked determinedly towards the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron…or where it was supposed to be. Instead of the decrepit old shop that a muggle would see, or the wizarding pub she had expected, there was a…Pizza Hut. Laurel blinked. It was a disconcerting feeling to miss what she had always expected to find. Thinking that perhaps it was an illusion, she entered the establishment, keeping her eyes peeled for other witches or wizards. In a haze of confusion, she entered the ladies' room and cast a spell to reveal nearby magical signatures. She found nothing. Ordinarily, no matter where she was, she would have picked up _some_ ambient magic, but there was nothing there, even at the lowest register, which was the signature for a few mildly magical potions ingredients. Her own magic's gentle interference caused a faint humming, which sounded too loud in the echoing silence. _Where was the magic?_ Because results like this meant that no Diagon Alley existed beyond the far wall. And if no Diagon, perhaps no Ministry….and what then?

Two hours later, Laurel sank exhaustedly onto a bench. She had tried to find Grimmauld Place, the Apparition point in Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley, and Godric's Hollow, and come up empty-handed. They didn't exist. There wasn't even a trace of magic in those places. After a bottle of water and some crisps that tasted a little like defeat, she decided to get back to her search.

The only place she had any luck at all was Hogwarts. Although it appeared there had once been a castle on the grounds (albeit a much smaller one than the Hogwarts she had known), it looked as if it had been in ruins for centuries. The crumbling gray walls had long ago surrendered to the Forbidden Forest, which seemed much vaster and wilder now that it had no need to adhere to man-made confines. She could sense the presence of magical creatures in the woods, and decided to enter.

Twilight had fallen, and she felt more than unnerved by the lack of magic and places that she used to know. Deciding that she would talk to a centaur if she could, she made her way inside the borders of the forest, waiting in the middle of the first clearing she found. It would only insult the centaurs if she tried to find them. She would have to be patient, and if they intended to speak to her, they would approach.

The temperature had begun to drop rapidly, and Laurel cast a warming charm over herself. Even though the moon was only in its crescent, it shone sharp and silvery over the grass and trailing vines. The night was singularly clear, and Laurel sought out Orion and her old friend, Sirius, in Canis Major.

She startled when a deep, rumbling voice spoke from an unnervingly close distance, "You were not born under these stars, child…and yet, your destiny is written in them."

Turning slowly in place, Laurel tilted her head to the side and regarded the oldest centaur she had ever seen. He looked more ancient even than Dumbledore, and his hair and beard tumbled snow-white down his badly scarred torso. Holly and winter flowers had been woven into his beard, and he stood bare-chested, as though he could not even feel the cold. He rose higher than her by a meter, and contemplated her with the most serene blue eyes she had ever seen.

Laurel had never met his like in her former world, but was pleased that he had sought her out. This elder seemed much kinder than Bane or Magorian, whom she had been expecting. She cleared her throat and explained, "I traveled through something called the Veil of Death, and now I'm in a world that looks nearly the same, but with some key differences. I can't seem to find any witches or wizards, and the magical places I knew have all vanished…except for here. I'm relieved that the Forbidden Forest still exists."

He raised an eyebrow in curiosity and rejoined mildly, "_Forbidden?_ And yet you are here, seeking my counsel."

She felt wrong-footed, as she always had in her limited dealing with centaurs and nodded cautiously. "What _do_ the stars say, sir…about me, I mean?" she ventured.

The old centaur stood solemnly, not looking at her, but at the sky. When she turned to regard him, she had to lift her eyes to see above his dun-colored flank because of his closeness. "It is pleasing to feel your magic," he said finally. "The last of your kind passed on when my great-great-grandfather was but a foal. And the last time a sorceress walked these woods was many ages before that."

"I am not a sorceress, sir, merely a witch," she objected.

His eyes glinted, for a moment looking dazzlingly similar to the stars he adored. "You are more even than that, _deathless one_. It was foretold that you would come from another world. Now you search for magic, but soon you will learn to seek what you lack, not what you already have," he intoned solemnly.

She smiled impishly, her face all bright eyes and sharp angles. "I have never heard a centaur speak so candidly before," she said ruefully.

Laughter danced in his old eyes when he turned and said, "Among my people, one's words are only as plain as the honor of the listener."

Laurel pondered his words for a moment before asking shyly, "What do I call you, friend?"

"Linus," he replied, and his lips tilted up in a secret smile. "And you are Laurel, the pursued, ever coveted for your power to grant victory."

"I have crossed worlds to escape that existence," she said slowly. "I had hoped I wouldn't have to run anymore."

"Little bird, you are temptation itself. But those that chase you will not always seek to destroy you. A mind that creates is not a mind that plunders. Learn to tell the difference, for only then can you stop running," he told her cryptically.

She gave him an odd look, fidgeting a little. "Is it true that I cannot die?" she blurted, changing the subject in obvious trepidation.

His eyes danced when he replied, "Death has already touched you twice, and you wear his own cloak. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that you _will_ not die."

"There's the cryptic wit I've been missing," she muttered sarcastically, before clapping her hands over her mouth in dismay.

The centaur only laughed, and it was a deep, soothing sound that made her think of rich, loamy earth. Laurel's cheeks colored, but she quickly sobered, terrified by the idea of an unending march of lonely years. No one else had a lifespan like hers. And so she asked plaintively, "Linus, is this a curse? Must I spend my eternity alone?"

"That depends entirely upon you," he replied with a quirk of his lips. He bowed at her, before pawing the frost-covered ground and charging off vigorously. Over his shoulder, the centaur called merrily, "Until next we meet!"

"Sir, wait!" Laurel cried, dashing after him. "What happened to this world's magic? Why are there no more witches and wizards anywhere?"

He turned towards her at the edge of the clearing, and a shadow passed over his hearty, ancient face. "They gave up what you came here to keep, and they lost what you have been sent here to find."

Linus lifted a hand towards her for the space of a heartbeat, and then vanished among the maze of trees. Laurel stared after him for a moment, laughing low and ironically at his ambiguous message, before apparating back to London, where she would find a place to sleep for the night.

Even though the centaur had been a tricky wordsmith, she had learned far more than she had expected to. He had said that these were different stars, so that meant a different dimension. She had been leaning towards that theory already, but it was nice to have it validated by someone else.

He had also told her that she was immortal, and that information was of considerable interest to her. She didn't know exactly what it meant though. If she was blown apart, would she come back together, or would all of the individual cells still be alive, but not part of a unit anymore? Or did it mean accelerated healing? Did something like Elixir of Life flow in her veins now? Or did she possess total invulnerability? Somehow she doubted the last. Even though she had not been injured since she'd mastered the Hallows, she had had a headache just that morning.

Laurel had been pondering what it meant to be Master of Death, and whether the title came with more perks than eternal life and invisibility. She knew that her magic felt much stronger. She used to feel her magical core in her torso, and could feel it flow down her fingers and through her wand. Now it seemed that every part of her was saturated with magic, even the ends of her hair.

She wondered whether she could summon Death, although the sheer horror of the idea managed to douse her curiosity. She knew that she could summon the dead, but she had no desire to do that ever again. Although she _did _want to know whether she could snatch someone back at the moment of death, and whether she had any unique healing powers now. It seemed likely, but she couldn't think of how to tap into them.

That night, Laurel sat in her hotel room eating Chinese takeout, and wondering where she should go from there. She decided that there were worse things she could do than explore the new world she had found herself in. After all, she figured, if it didn't have magic, maybe it held something else equally fascinating. It didn't take long for her to discover she had been right. It held Tony Stark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Iron Man**

Since Laurel had tentatively come to terms with the complete lack of magical communities, she decided that she had better learn about technology so that she could blend in. She had no intention of abandoning magic. It was the only edge she had, and so she needed to learn how to avoid detection, and quickly. She didn't relish the idea of accidentally exposing herself and becoming some government's science project. So she decided to start by entering an electronics store and buying a computer. The teenaged salesman was more than willing to advise her and help set it up, and so she exited the store with a computer and a couple of books on how to operate it.

She found it surprisingly easy to use, but it bothered her that she didn't understand how it was able to do so many remarkable things. And when she realized that she could type any obscure and random question into her computer's search engine and generally get an answer, she decided that if there was magic in this world, that this was it—so much knowledge, so much potential at her fingertips. Machines were _amazing_. When she discovered Wikipedia, she didn't sleep for nearly two nights.

Laurel had all kinds of questions. She wanted to know about muggle weapons, about technology. Could satellites see her? How did police track people? What kinds of diseases were causing trouble? What was the current political situation? She had been so well-insulated in the wizarding world that she had never bothered to find out the important details of her previous dimension. She cursed her former lack of curiosity, because now it was very difficult for her to make comparisons. But she set out to make up for lost time, striving to learn what the muggles knew. She had set up camp in a hotel in an upscale area of London, a long tube ride from the regions that had been magical and familiar to her in another life.

Laurel knew in her heart that the centaur had told the truth about there being no more magical people, but couldn't bring herself to accept his word for it without more evidence. Because if it was true, then it meant that she was thoroughly alone, cursed to live a trillion lifetimes among ephemeral nonmagicals. She pondered over what the centaur had meant when he had said it was up to her whether she spent eternity alone. Had he been conveying some sort of trite warning about closing herself off from other people? Centaurs were rarely so stale in their speech. It was more likely that he had meant something along the lines of a way to escape her immortality or share it with another. It really was too bad that centaurs only ever said exactly what they intended to say. Once they had said their piece, nothing in heaven or earth could make them utter a word more.

In her quest for other magicals, she took side trips. First she tried to find the Burrow, Malfoy Manor, and every other nearby wizarding location she could think of, and when that failed as expected, she branched out to the continent. She never discovered anything. No Beaubatons, no ICW headquarters….It appeared that she truly was the only magical alive—finally the 'freak' her relatives had called her all along.

Just when she thought she was finally getting the hang of this new world, and had begun to tell herself that the benefits of anonymity and no Ministry of Magic outweighed her sense of alienation, she saw something on the news that made her reevaluate everything.

Laurel had been sitting in a café near Hampton Court Bridge, idly watching through the plate-glass window as pedestrians rushed about making last-minute Valentine's Day purchases. A flash of red and gold on the large television in the corner stole her attention…and kept it.

She watched as a robot executed complicated aerial maneuvers at unbelievably high speeds. Small aircraft, which the newscaster proclaimed belonged to some terrorist group or other in North Africa, zipped around him, firing heavy guns and the occasional missile. The machine fought back, firing blasts of energy from the palms of his hands, and he had a sort of blue crystal embedded in his chest piece. Laurel was riveted. Could this be real? She had thought scenes like this still belonged to the realm of science fiction.

She watched the battle take place, silently cheering on the expert flyer in Gryffindor colors. After it took out the last of the planes, the android landed and was suddenly swamped by reporters. The faceplate rose and…the two most alive, unfathomable dark eyes she had ever seen stared out at her, sparkling with humor and intelligence. She sat back with a soft exhalation. So a man in armor, and not a machine then. Laurel had thought she had caught up with the current technology, but this was something set apart. She had never read about anything remotely as advanced.

Laurel listened keenly as the reporter gave a little background on "Iron Man," the hero of the day, and Tony Stark, his mechanical genius alter ego, while she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that there were mechanical suits that could fly. Who was this one man that kept countries from war? What madness was this?

Her ears perked up as the man in the suit raised his hand to make himself heard. In an amused, carrying voice, he called, "I have a message. World: you're welcome. You know I aim to please, and I know that most of you aren't as greedy and ungrateful as Senator Stern. He thinks the Iron Man suit should belong to the public, and by the 'public', he means that he and his cronies in Washington want a new toy to play with. Well, I have to say that he's showing a lot of bravado for a senator of the state with the second highest crime rate in the nation."

There were ripples of laughter and outrage at his words, and he continued, "You tell me, people. Who do you think is more likely to keep you safe: the man that actually _invented _the technology and has been successfully protecting the world as Iron Man from every threat that's raised its head since his inception…or a bureaucratic buttinski that owns even more Hammer Tech stock than he does twinkies….a number which, I've been told, is considerable.

"Now I'm speaking directly to you, senator. Perhaps it's not too late for you to run out and buy a gift for your wife, if you can spare a little time from your obsessive plans to _take _from me and the American people. Your undivided attention is flattering, but I'm just not attracted to you!"

Snickers and cheers erupted at this pronouncement. He had gathered quite a crowd, and had to wait to speak again until after they had settled down. He was unapologetically taking advantage of his moment of public goodwill in order to grandstand, and Laurel fleetingly wished that she had learned to manage the press half as well as he seemed to be doing.

"If any terrorists are listening, well, it looks like you guys got your asses handed to you once again. The next time you or any of your fellow villains get it into your heads to start something, I'd consider it a personal favor if you came at me with something a little more challenging than scrap 1960s Soviet tech. Pathetic!"

Laurel grinned in spite of herself. She _liked_ this man. He was obviously arrogant, and probably self-destructive, but he had a hell of a lot of courage. Her eyes roamed over his face, taking in his dark hair, the flush of victory on his tanned cheeks and the smirk that he made no attempt to hide. His full lips were accentuated by a thin mustache and an artfully styled goatee.

She was shaken from her appraisal when he began speaking to the reporters again. "Sorry, guys. No Q and A today," he announced. "Maybe we can work something out a little closer to the Stark Expo….You heard it, ladies and gentlemen! This April, New York City will be the place to be. Come to the Stark Expo. Iron Man will be there, and scientific breakthroughs clearly beyond the wildest dreams of the terrorists whose stylings we all witnessed earlier. Stark Expo, people!"

Then he dropped his visor, and flew off into the sunset…at supersonic speeds. That was the beginning of Laurel's preoccupation with Tony Stark. She lapsed into thought, striving to come to terms with what she had just seen. Could he be a wizard that had managed to blend in with the muggles through showmanship and misdirection? Surely he could not do the things he did without magic. Perhaps the glowing blue device in his chest was merely a prop. She decided to go home and do a little research on her computer.

Perched cross-legged on the bed in her hotel room that night, she read all about the beguiling superhero, about his capture by terrorists last year, probable torture, and daring escape in a homemade, prototype Iron Man suit. She found articles rife with rumors of how he had (allegedly) slaughtered every single terrorist in the Ten Rings, the group that had taken him. There was also lots of speculation that the hit had been ordered by Obadiah Stane, his mentor and surrogate father. She had curled her lip in fury at that. It seemed that she and this Stark had more in common than she had anticipated.

Much had also been written about how his technology was changing the world. Apparently, before his kidnapping, his company had been the world's greatest weapons manufacturer, but afterwards, he had decided to go another direction and look into clean energy. It seemed that the military and his board of directors weren't exactly thrilled he had shut off the tap. That was probably the impetus behind this movement headed by Sen. Stern, who clamored for the Iron Man suit to be taken away, preaching that it was too much power for one man to have. "More like, governments can't bear the thought of power not their own," she muttered darkly, recalling the escalation of the threatening tone in the Ministry's 'requests' for her sworn wizard's oath of cooperation with them. Identifying even more with the American inventor in that moment, she felt vindictively glad that he had publicly told the politicians to shove it. She had often dreamed of the chance to do the same.

Apparently, Tony Stark had been a notorious playboy before his capture, but since then, most articles speculated that he and his personal assistant, Pepper Potts, were in an exclusive relationship, although it seemed neither had confirmed it to the press. She scowled in irritation as she caught herself reading a gossipy exposé on his personal life. She knew from experience how libelous and inaccurate those usually turned out to be.

The more research she did, the less water her wizard theory seemed to hold. Apparently his father, Howard Stark, had been a genius inventor, and Tony himself was a prodigy, with a very well-documented history. Magic was a pretty big secret, and it would be a very hard one for a child celebrity to hide. It appeared much more likely that he was a technological innovator decades ahead of his time.

She had stubbornly refused to abandon her theory as long as there was a shred of doubt, but the story of the creation of his arc reactor placed the last proverbial nail in its coffin. Apparently, he had only had the glowing disc in his chest since his captivity. It was an energy source he had invented. He had been quite tight-lipped on the subject to the interviewer, but had mentioned something about it replacing a car battery. Laurel shivered. She didn't know what that meant, but it greatly unsettled her, and the image of a gaping, ribless hole in the center of his chest, with the leads of a car battery slithering out of him like chains or tentacles, haunted her long after she fell asleep that night.

The next morning, the young witch woke feeling more hope and resolve than she had experienced since she'd arrived in this new world several weeks before. She had decided to pay a visit to this Tony Stark in…Malibu, California. Even if he wasn't a wizard, he was changing the world with his technology. She only intended to scope him out and make sure he and his inventions weren't a threat to her, but a part of her wondered idly if he could be a potential ally. With her magic and his genius, who knew what they could achieve?

She shook off the idea, sternly telling herself that she couldn't let her loneliness start making decisions for her. As much as she had hated the Ministry of Magic, they might have been onto something with the Statute of Secrecy. She would have to be mad to expose her magic to muggles. That way led to slavery, labs, and possibly vivisection. Magic was both her greatest asset and greatest liability. The secret weapon can't be coveted, or suspected by enemies until it's too late.

That afternoon, Laurel checked out of her hotel and considered whether she ought to fly on a muggle plane or attempt an apparition. It was a ridiculously long distance, and she had never heard of anyone attempting it, but had honestly never felt more exhausted after jumping five hundred miles than she had after one foot. She suspected that distance had nothing to do with the equation, since one was basically joining two points of unrelated space, but she had never read any research on it one way or the other. After studying the layout and images of Malibu near the environs of Stark's mansion on something called Google Earth, she felt confident enough to give it a try. She hoped that she didn't land somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but if she did, well, that's what brooms—and being a raven animagus-are for.

Her legs trembled slightly as she settled onto solid ground. The balmy weather surprised her, although she supposed it shouldn't have. She would have to find a place to stay and change clothes immediately. The British witch stepped out from behind the stand of palms shielding her from view of a gorgeous skyscraper, and surveyed the shoreline for lodgings that appealed to her. She settled on a particularly luxurious building a couple hundred yards away and started walking. Laurel decided that she might as well enjoy herself. She had had far too little opportunity to do so in the past, and the gold she had invested was reaping abundant returns (considerably more than a Gringotts' galleon-to-pound conversion, she thought with a snicker).

As she entered the lobby, she felt pale and out of her element surrounded by so much beautifully bronzed skin. She thought that it would be nice to swim in the ocean, but the water was far too cold. She could use warming charms, but being the lone winter swimmer would certainly not help her remain anonymous. She _could_ make herself invisible….Laurel shook off the idea. She hadn't come here to swim. Something far more interesting than water had led her here.

After grabbing some dinner at a nearby crab shack, Laurel concentrated on being invisible and apparated across the road from Tony Stark's…palace. The mansion was situated on a cliff, with the sea visible from three directions. It was modernism at its most graceful and revolutionary. Parts of his house reminded her of a starship, gleaming white, with vast, rippling expanses of glass. Expecting that he had some sort of state-of-the-art perimeter alarm, Laurel strained her eyes to look through the windows. She could see into a large sitting room, and promptly apparated into the middle of it. The curving walls and clean, bright surfaces reflecting the setting sun struck her as the antithesis of Grimmauld Place, which had reeked of madness and stagnation. Stark's house broadcasted genius and progress.

Stealthily, Laurel began to explore. Few of the rooms seemed lived in, but all exhibited the same sleek, deceptively Spartan style as the living room. She wandered through many areas, and only found the master bedroom because of the clothes on the floor. Stark displayed no photographs, and, like the rest of the house, his room bore no personal touches. It seemed that a professional decorator had had her way with the place, and the owner had never seen fit to change anything.

Laurel had begun to think that no one was home, when she heard murmuring voices coming from the stairs. Curious, she descended to a vast laboratory, the most state-of-the-art workshop she had ever seen. Iron Man suits lined the walls, and the many machines and materials littering the room must have cost in the millions. His lab looked like it could house a small country's space program. Tony Stark leaned over a table, casually moving data on touch screens on six different monitors, and bantering with a polite, disembodied male voice. "Sir, this configuration appears too unstable," the voice was saying.

"Don't worry, Jarvis. I'm not finished," Stark rejoined cheerfully, and Laurel settled into a nearby corner to watch him work.

She had cast a magical detection spell before she descended the stairs, and received no readings, which had settled his magical status rather definitively. Although, as she watched his brilliant mind at work, it was impossible for her to feel disappointed. It seemed to her that, although she _possessed_ some magic, he _was_ magic. His _mind_ was magical. Just as she was now the only one of her kind, so was he absolutely unique. As she viewed him do things with metal and fire that she could never have even imagined, she felt as awed as if she had stumbled into Mt. Etna and found the god Hephaestus himself at his forge.

Stark…wasn't what she had expected. In company, he was brilliant and flashy and sharp suits and everything one would expect. But he only adopted that persona a fraction of the time. He spent the vast majority of his days working on his inventions in a near-Bacchic frenzy. She couldn't help but admire him. He was the Michelangelo of technology. His drive and unparalleled mind fascinated her. She saw that he had no interest in management and public relations. The beautiful, red-haired woman in the perfectly tailored clothes was forever having to track him down to sign documents related to his company, which he always seemed reluctant to make time to do.

His genius didn't really surprise her. Impress her? Sure. But what she hadn't expected was to find someone so…broken. He rarely slept more than a few hours, and she caught herself coming by in the evenings to watch him work more and more often. She should have realized then that she was already too entangled with his life, even if it was only by subconsciously trying to soothe his loneliness. She had long since learned that he had no magic, and wasn't actively working on any projects that could harm her. In fact, more than half the time she couldn't begin to fathom what he was doing. She had no logical reason to keep coming back, but was drawn inexorably to his lab every evening, and had given up fighting the pull.

His presence eased her unacknowledged emptiness. She always bought a book, but rarely concentrated on its pages. He made for far more interesting material. It pleased her to see the spark of creativity in his vibrant brown eyes, and to witness his deft fingers seamlessly dart between touchscreen and blowtorch. Watching him chat with his robots, holding court in his small kingdom filled with marvels he had crafted with his own hands, gave her some measure of contentment. Tony Stark was very vital, his force of personality unmatched. And he was good—genuinely kind, generous, and oddly noble.

Laurel saw how guarded he was beneath his brash façade. His humor and devastating wit were formidable weapons indeed. But when he was alone (which was surprisingly often), his expressive dark eyes frequently took on a haunted cast. She sometimes produced small magical distractions to divert him from his black moods, just subtle things, like causing a tool to topple off the workbench. He was far too sharp for her to dare anything more obvious.

When he worked in the lab, he frequently wore jeans with wife-beaters or t-shirts, and her spell-corrected eyes spotted a few faint scars lightening the olive skin in places on his arms. His clever, long-fingered hands sported a few burns, which didn't appear to deter him, because nearly every day she dropped in, she saw him working with either lasers or hot metal. But then, Laurel supposed, there probably wasn't much that could stop a man like him. Stark's sturdy, compact body moved with grace and power. A man that could endure months of torture and then have the sheer audacity to use his captors' tools and materials for his own ends—while strapped to a car battery and filled with shrapnel-must have an absolutely unshakable will. His character, combined with his genius intellect and silver tongue, made him the proverbial irresistible force. She laughed fondly as it occurred to her that the terrorists had never really had a chance.

He received no visitors besides Pepper Potts, and Laurel had to roll her eyes at the other woman, who merely performed her tasks and then smartly departed. It seemed so obvious to Laurel that Stark wanted her to stick around and spend time with him. He went to great lengths to entice her, teasing and trying to distract her from her business by showing her his creations, but she never seemed more than politely interested. They talked past each other. How could Laurel see his desperation and yet a woman he had known for years be so oblivious?

After a few weeks of observing him, she chanced upon Pepper granting him a cold and perfunctory goodbye kiss, and realized that the two had what must be classified as a 'romantic relationship'. But by that point, she had seen enough of the couple's interactions to grasp that Tony was a bit of an afterthought with Pepper. Job and company would always come first, and this knowledge irritated the witch, causing her to feel a little angry and hurt on Stark's behalf. It was beginning to seem like she had more in common with the entrepreneur than she had expected. No one ever put his needs first either. And that might have been when her Gryffindor protective instincts surged up in his defense.

It surprised her when she realized that she was no longer content merely to observe him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Coffee**

Tony Stark was in a bourbon mood. Sitting alone in his cold, silent house, he decided that the drink's smoky warmth would make an adequate substitute for the companionship he secretly longed for. He generally enjoyed this time in his workshop, where he could implement the schemes that flashed through his active mind as naturally as breathing. But today, he had never felt so completely desolate. Nightmares had tortured him and kept him from sleep several times this week, and his body felt abused and unnaturally exhausted.

Initially, after he had escaped from the Ten Rings, he had been a driven man, filled with purpose. He had resolved to make a better, deadlier Iron Man suit. He had planned to mitigate the harm he had caused by producing weapons, and to get out of that market once and for all.

With no explanation, he had veered to the opposite extreme after the revelation of Obadiah's betrayal. Now, whenever he wasn't working, an echoing emptiness pervaded every corner of his life. There had been so few people that he could trust already...

When he had first unveiled the Iron Man suit, he had been universally adored, but public opinion was notoriously fickle, and it was no simple matter to escape the stigma of 'Merchant of Death'. His board of directors, the very same board that had gone along with Obie's attempt to freeze him out of his own company, saw him as an embarrassment, a liability, but a necessary evil. They were a constant headache, issuing ultimatums. They wanted him to choose between being the CEO they wanted, which meant attending incessant meetings in order to dance attendance on them and soothe their unscientific, ruffled feathers, or giving up any clout he had in the company and dedicating himself to inventing cutting-edge technology. They felt he couldn't be a good leader if he wasn't _one of them_—in other words, a meeting-minded bureaucrat. They demanded that he make frequent public appearances. He resisted, because it was_ his_ company, but Pepper seemed to have taken up the board's agenda as her own, and he found it exhausting to refuse her continuous pleas and maneuvering.

But his problems hardly ended there. Reporters, legislators, the military and legions of bureaucrats were swarming in to claim their 'fair share' of his brilliantly successful creation. The newsreels buzzed with slander. Some days he was a threat; other days, incompetent. He faced lawsuits, mockery and disbelief from the press, and attempted seizures of his technology for 'the good of the many'. "So much for free enterprise," he snorted bitterly, swallowing the last of his drink in a messy gulp and exchanging his empty tumbler for a wrench.

He was still appallingly sober, but though he gazed longingly at the thick glass bottle, he dared not have more. It would only facilitate the poison.

Because those were only his _public_ troubles. His private life was even more disastrous. Although damaged and shaken by Afghanistan, he had been relieved to be back among the people that cared about him. And then he had discovered that Obadiah, the only living person he considered family, more a father to him than Howard Stark had ever thought about being, had betrayed him, had wanted him dead…persistently enough to try multiple times and a variety of gruesome ways. Tony was still reeling from that knowledge, and it had irrevocably altered his perceptions of other people and himself. He was hurt, and his soul struggled to understand. Because if _Obadiah_ had thought he was expendable…well, no one had seemed to love him more than Obadiah. And so he was a little more jaded now, and a lot more suspicious.

Tony would never describe his state of mind since those events as 'emotionally vulnerable', but then he had never felt particularly comfortable with emotions…or vulnerability. His attitude had always been _he could handle it_. If he had learned one thing from his father, the legendary Howard Stark, it was that his own feelings were irrelevant at best and, at worst, an annoyance to those around him. The people wanted Tony Stark the entertainer, the vivacious life of the party. No one wanted Tony Stark, the shattered, traumatized, melancholy _victim_.

His horror had mounted when he had realized that the palladium from his arc reactor had been slowly poisoning him, even as the reactor kept him alive. He had lived the past few months with the shadow of death hanging over his head, knowing that the terrorists had killed him in that cave, but that he was to have a lingering death, rather than the relatively swift one they had promised. Soon he would have to make arrangements. His blood toxicity rose every day, and his cores burned out with alarming frequency. Perhaps he could persuade Pepper to take one last vacation with him in the coming weeks. Maybe he could face his situation, if he could just have one long weekend where he felt that he mattered. Then he could leave the country and stage an 'accident'. It would certainly be preferable to Pepper finding his body…potentially several days after he had died. Tony shuddered.

He hadn't been able to face the prospect of meaningless sex after Afghanistan, and that was even truer now that he knew he was dying. He needed something real, some comfort and warmth to get him through this dark period. Tony had clung to Pepper, sure, but he felt pretty certain that he loved her. He definitely felt affection for her. She was loyal, and loyalty was hard to come by these days. But things hadn't been easy between them…and still weren't. If he admitted it to himself, and he never quite did, he felt…disappointed with his foray into romance.

The engineer experienced more loneliness than ever. He and Pepper talked at cross-purposes. He knew that she was better, more virtuous than him, but he always felt wrong-footed with her, like he was the child and she his disapproving, but indulgent mother. He could predict her behavior more consistently than one of his robot's. She had saved him before, but was always his _reluctant_ heroine. Pepper didn't_ get him_ at the deepest level, but he understood her only too well. She didn't like when he delved deeper, was put off by his intensity. He could never let her see his demons. It wouldn't be fair to her. She felt comfortable with shallow, funny Tony. She wanted him to take her out on dates and for them to have a _pleasant_ time. She didn't want to _worry_.

Pepper was simple—maybe cleanly and elegantly so, but still eminently predictable. And whatever love she felt for him simmered only a few degrees above room temperature. He kept his doubts buried, because she was a lovely woman and he depended on her. Besides, what other woman would see _Tony_ when she looked at him, and not his money or Iron Man? Only she _didn't_ quite see Tony, and that was the problem.

If he hadn't have felt so completely alienated, perhaps he would have told someone when the strange things started happening. Instead, he kept it a secret and it became a sort of game. Since Pepper was basically running the company, no one had been around to serve as his personal assistant. He had become accustomed to drinking the sludge that he brewed in his lab, without any creamer or sugar, because he consistently forgot to stock the condiments. And so when Pepper had shown up one morning with papers for him to sign and had brought along a cup of his favorite coffee, made from medium roasted Colombian grounds, complete with a triple shot of espresso, and loaded with sugar, he had been almost pathetically grateful.

When he woke up the next day and found an identical cup waiting for him on the counter, still piping hot, he had drunk it appreciatively and called to thank her, only for her to deny responsibility for this latest gesture. After Happy also refuted his involvement, Tony had Jarvis pull up the security tapes, because there was nothing he liked better than a mystery.

The reality proved far more bizarre than any possibility he had envisioned, because the cup of coffee _had materialized out of thin air_ onto his counter. He blinked. And then he blinked again, checking the time-stamp of the recording. It had appeared about two minutes before he had entered the kitchen, and had still been hot when he had…_drunk it_. Tony swore colorfully.

"Jarvis, do a security sweep. Find out how someone got into my _kitchen_ without you noticing…or appearing on the video feed. Check your files. Maybe you've been compromised. While you're at it, lock down the lab," he bit out, as he pulled out his palladium meter and pricked his finger to analyze his blood. As long as whatever toxin he might have drunk was currently known to science, it would show up here.

"Sir, do you fear you have been poisoned?" inquired Jarvis.

"It's possible. No one I consider a friend would hack your system," he replied distractedly.

"Sir, I have the results you requested. None of my files or cameras has been tampered with," the disembodied voice stolidly relayed.

"Then who could have done this?" he murmured to himself. "And how?"

"I do not know whom it could be, sir, but I have calculated the methods of entry in ascending order of probability. The odds that my systems have been compromised are .03%. The odds that you sent yourself your favorite cup of coffee by time travel are .49%. The odds of an invisible gift-bearer are approximately 99.48%," his AI replied.

His dark eyebrows rose in bemusement. "99.48%, huh? But good job including the time travel theory. I like that you considered it an option," he smirked.

"With you, one never knows, sir," Jarvis answered in wry amusement.

The rest of the day, Tony remained guarded, carefully looking around him and installing pressure-sensitive perimeter alarms to augment his security system around the house. When Laurel arrived that afternoon, she watched his plotting with fond exasperation. She didn't know what she had been thinking, getting him that coffee. She fully recognized the foolishness of her actions. If she wanted to live a quiet, private life, then exposing her magic to a genius ex-arms dealer was hardly the way to go about it. But part of her had known for a while that contact was inevitable. She was just too curious _not_ to interact with him.

Laurel had never met a man as verbal as Stark. He babbled eloquently to his robot minions, giving them commands interspersed with humorous remarks and pop culture references. She always listened carefully when he spoke. His words made her very aware of their different backgrounds and experiences. She had no idea what he was talking about most of the time when it came to art, music, movies, and literature—never mind science. And so she had begun, haltingly, to educate herself in these areas. In her previous life, knowledge of magic had always been enough—really, it had been the only value. No one had expected anything else from her (besides selfless courage, apparently).

But sorcery was the one thing she couldn't talk about in this world, and she feared that without her breadth of experience in magic to fall back on, she would make for an incredibly dull conversationalist…and she didn't want Stark to find her dull. Whether she admitted it or not, that was her prime motivator. She often speculated on what would happen if she eventually lost her mind and decided to expose wizardry to Stark. She knew that he would find magic fascinating, but she didn't just want to be a vehicle for magic, a perpetual means to an end. The young witch had never longed someone's understanding and camaraderie so desperately. She liked him, and had determined that they were kindred spirits, but had deduced weeks ago that if all of his jokes earned a blank stare from her, he would probably not feel much of a connection to her. Stark was a genius, and would probably be bored with her no matter what, but she had resolved not to make it easy for him.

The catalyst had occurred the morning before. Laurel had finished the potion she had been working on, and decided to take her book over to his lab. She figured that she could read Dickens just as easily there as anywhere else. Somewhere along the way, Stark's lab had begun to feel like home. She had popped into the workshop, but he wasn't there yet, and so she followed the sound of voices to the kitchen.

Pepper had brought him a coffee from Starbucks, and his happiness was obvious and pleasing to witness. But Laurel could see his features tightening when he realized that she hadn't come over just to see him and bring a gift. Pepper had all business in mind. "I just think that we need to add a few more progressive charities to our list this year. I've brought several of the applications with me. People need to know that this is what Stark Industries is about. All this focus on the Expo sends the wrong message," she was saying.

"Pepper," he began patiently. "The company already has an entire division dedicated to giving money to nearly a hundred charities. My politics aren't what they were a few years ago. I don't _care_ about these things." He leafed through a few of the applications, a look of mild disgust on his face. "Really, Pepper? 'Protecting Sea Creatures from Corporate Tyranny'? You thought I would go for this, why?"

Her back had gone ramrod straight and she retorted, "The PSCCT is very fashionable right now, Tony. Wouldn't you like to get a little _good_ publicity for a change? We could send out a press release, get people's focus on something positive-something besides the Expo, which is _great_, but only appeals to a certain demographic."

Under his breath, he murmured, "Handing out money is always fashionable."

She glared, and he looked a little guilty. "Pep, look. The Stark Expo is and will always be the most important public event in our business. It reminds people what we're all about-innovation, imagination—not saving sea cucumbers, however admirable I'm sure that is….The Expo is my legacy," he answered decisively.

Pepper said nothing, but regarded him with a look of mild disdain that screamed, "_Selfish_."

Laurel's jaw tightened in anger, because she knew Tony had seen the look too, although he seemed too exhausted to argue about it. That was often his way, she had noticed. He was misjudged so frequently and he never protested. Instead, he seemed to take pains to make others feel justified in their assessments, playing up his selfishness and irresponsibility. Laurel occasionally followed him to a board meeting or power lunch, and she had seen this side of him many times. She would have been fooled too, if she hadn't seen how his mask immediately slipped whenever he thought he was alone. Now she had learned to spot the brittleness in his eyes that his sharp grin was never quite able to suppress. Why couldn't Pepper understand the sort of man he was, the sort of things he cared about? He glorified ingenuity and brilliant discoveries.

"So, will you sign them?" she asked briskly.

He didn't reply for a moment, staring down at his coffee with both hands wrapped around it protectively, like it was the last one he would ever get. Finally, he murmured, "Sorry, Pepper. Anything extra goes towards the Expo. If you want to take some of the budget directed to other organizations and apply it to these, be my guest."

Her grim expression made it clear that this answer wasn't good enough. It was obvious that she had expected to come by, get his signature, and be on her way. She hadn't expected him to ask questions, and was annoyed that her explanations hadn't been enough to sway him. He walked her to the door and broke the silence by asking, "Would you be up for dinner tonight, Pep?" in a hopeful voice, waggling his eyebrows roguishly.

She swept her eyes over his t-shirt and sweatpant-clad body and her voice had an edge to it when she replied, "I can't, Tony. Some of us have actual _work_ to do."

Pepper, in her perfectly pressed, gray business ensemble exited the front door with alacrity, her elegant heels clicking lightly on the tile floor. Stark stared after her for a moment, an unfathomable look in his dark eyes. He had dropped his charming grin, and looked very somber, and a little lost. Laurel knew that there would be no coffee coming for him tomorrow.

That thought made her unreasonably angry, and before she had fully realized what she was doing, had nonverbally summoned his drink receipt from Pepper's purse. It had his order itemized, just as she had hoped. She couldn't forget the look on his face when he had received the beverage. For a moment, he had lit up with childlike happiness. The tension had left his face and he had looked…like a man who felt appreciated. Laurel wanted that for him every day. She knew it wouldn't be the same since the drinks wouldn't be coming from Pepper, but she hoped he took some pleasure from the gesture anyway.

The next afternoon, as she watched him busily 'shoring up his perimeter', it occurred to her that she should have expected this reaction. A scientist like Stark didn't tolerate loose ends. He would want to know where the drink had come from and why. Laurel flashed a shark-like grin in anticipation. She would lead him a merry chase.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Games**

The next morning, another seemingly innocent cup of coffee appeared on his kitchen counter. "Mr. Stark, sir, it appears that your mystery guest has returned with another beverage," the AI called, just as he was stepping out of the shower.

Before Jarvis had finished his sentence, Tony had thrown on a pair of pants and practically vaulted down the stairs, hair dripping as he ran. "Jarvis, check all the security feeds and let me know what you find," he ordered.

This time, Laurel had waited to witness his reaction. In amusement, she watched as he peered cautiously into every corner, and eyed the cup as though it was full of plague germs. "Jarvis, analyze the beverage. Screen it for every toxin in the database, and check it for radiation and anything else that doesn't belong in a cup of coffee," he continued.

Laurel felt a bit embarrassed that she was putting him up to extra work, but didn't feel too badly, because he had seemed to come alive with the onset of the mystery and potential danger. Settling back to watch his antics…and his lovely, well-muscled chest, with the few droplets of water chasing each other down the lean lines of his torso and skirting around his arc reactor….she startled when he suddenly drawled a question to the room at large.

"So what are you exactly? You're invisible, right? So you could still be here watching me. In fact, you probably are. Let me guess, you're some sort of mutant spying for S.H.I.E.L.D. But why would you blow your cover? …Are you a wannabe supervillain, trying to send a message? Telling me that there's nowhere you can't reach me?" he queried.

Laurel frowned at his words. She hadn't wanted him to interpret her as a threat, but supposed that suspicion would be anyone's natural reaction.

"A cyborg from the future? An alien? Angel? Demon? Failed experiment? …Successful experiment? Casper the friendly ghost?" he continued.

Laurel suppressed her amusement, and watched him pace. As he moved ever closer to where she currently leaned against the wall, she began to tense up. She told herself that he didn't know she was still here. He was just trolling, testing. Laurel shivered, feeling a bit like Bilbo in Smaug's lair. Stark's mind was a formidable thing, and she already regretted forgetting the silencing and scent-neutralizing charms.

She had seen him alternate between merriment and sorrow many times, had witnessed frustration, anger, obsession and a hundred other emotions flash across his face at one time or another. It was easy to forget how predatory he was when that intent gaze was directed at something else. But as it swept the room, carefully cataloging even the slightest change, watching for any movement at all, she remembered that Stark was someone that had killed, and was almost certainly a candidate for smartest man alive. She lost her nerve and disapparated.

Every day for the next week, she brought him coffee, levitating it to the counter to avoid any traps he might have set. She always watched to see what he would do, but made sure to cast a thorough set of concealing spells on herself first. Each day, he cajoled her to reveal herself. He threatened to mention her to someone named Coulson. He made outlandish guesses about her identity (some of them were actually rather close), and her motives. He challenged her, calling her a coward. He promised not to hurt her. He asked her leading questions.

Laurel found Stark to be a pretty good interrogator. She had actually been tempted to answer several of his more interesting queries. But she never did, and he always deliberately dropped the untasted coffee into the trash. This irritated her to no end, as was his intention, judging by his knowing smirk and the flourish of his wrist as he threw out her gifts. He was always such a damn showman. One day, Laurel couldn't take it anymore and left a note. She didn't even bother to stay and see his reaction, she was so exasperated.

That morning, as he picked up his coffee and issued his customary mumbled "Good morning" to Jarvis and the Coffee Bandit, as he had taken to calling her (Even though Jarvis assured him that this made no sense, as she was bringing him coffee, not stealing it. Tony had rejoined that she was probably stealing it from somewhere.), his eyes widened as they fell on a post-it note attached to the side of it. His eyebrows rose as he read the rather choppy script.

"_Mr. Stark, Let me assure you that this is safe to drink. In fact, the swill you brew in your lab is far more likely to harm you. Sincerely, A visiting poltergeist_"

He stared at the note for a moment before snorting with laughter. "Uppity little ghost," he muttered with a grin.

The note had the desired effect, and Tony began drinking the coffee she faithfully delivered each morning. Laurel and Tony kept more or less the same hours. Both experienced troubled dreams and insomnia, and made do with very little rest at night. She spent more time in his company than she had before, and realized that he required more coffee in a day than just his one cup of gourmet brew. She watched how his face would screw up in distaste as he reluctantly made his way to his battered coffeemaker to supplement her offering, and so after a couple days of this, Laurel took to bringing him one coffee and leaving it in its usual place on the kitchen counter, and delivering four additional cups in a carrier that she deposited directly in the lab. She placed a stasis charm on each beverage that would be deactivated the moment his lips touched the liquid.

When Tony first saw the drinks settled unobtrusively on his workbench between a pile of schematics and a gauntlet he was in the middle of rewiring, his mouth went slack for a moment before he was galvanized into motion, sweeping his eyes into every corner of the room and calling out, in a voice calculated both to dare and annoy, "So, invisibility and teleportation…not the usual skill-set."

From her vantage point near his suit displays, Laurel had been leaning against the wall and waiting with more anticipation than she should be feeling for him to discover her newest gift. She jolted with surprise when he called out to her. She hadn't realized that he had already managed to deduce her teleportation. But that was because she didn't know he had booby-trapped the stairwell. Since it was the only way to enter or exit the lab, he had placed heat and pressure alarms along every surface. An insect couldn't fly through without Jarvis finding out.

Tony added conversationally, "You know, I'm steadily learning about you. I know you've been watching me, and you must know that I don't give up. I _will_ find out everything sooner or later….Ready to tell me what you are? I have lots of new guesses today. What are you? God? Wizard? Fairy? Elf? Vampire? Genie? 'Experimental investigator' of optical density? …_Please_ be a succubus."

Laurel grinned at his antics. Stark, who appeared to be enjoying the sound of his own voice thoroughly, continued, "So why did you bring more coffee down here? To show me that you could infiltrate the lab? You know, I don't consume it _that_ fast. Most of the cups will grow cold before I get around to drinking them, and there's no one else here for me to share them with. I guess they'll be _wasted_," he said with an exaggerated sigh, before adding, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "unless…_you_ drink one….Come on out. Have a cuppa with me."

He smiled charmingly and looked all around, as if he actually thought the ploy would work. After a few moments, he smirked and shrugged, returning to his work. Hours passed, and Laurel kept looking up from her book, impatient for his counterattack, because she knew it was coming. Finally, Stark decided to take a break from whatever he had been furiously working on—something with cables and mesh that appeared bizarrely complicated. Laurel saw him eye his battered coffee machine with displeasure. His face was surprisingly easy to read when he was "alone" in the lab. He displayed his emotions freely, and his eyes and mouth were very expressive. She noticed his speculative glance towards the three remaining Starbucks cups, and smugly waited to see what he would make of her stasis spell.

He reached towards the closest cardboard cup and nearly dropped it. Stark's expression of amazement struck her as almost comical. He gasped and murmured, "This shouldn't be possible. These have been here for hours."

Leaning closer, Laurel watched his enraptured expression. He lifted the drink, and a haze of steam rose from it. Cautiously, he took a sip, and his eyes widened even further. She gave a secret smile at sharing how wonderful magic could be. She knew that the stasis spell would make the coffee taste exactly as it had moments after it had been brewed. "Energy preservation…no insulators….Jarvis, record the temperature of these liquids and let me know when it changes," he demanded.

"Sir, my sensors indicate that the cup in your hand is losing heat at a constant rate, however, the temperature of the other two remains unchanged," Jarvis volunteered.

Stark stared at the cup in his hand for several long moments before whispering, "Remarkable. There must be some sort of force field….How…" he trailed off, and Laurel grinned brightly, feeling supremely satisfied that she had given him something new to puzzle over.

The next day, she noticed that the three cups of coffee were where she had left them. The engineer had turned them into some sort of bizarre science project, which probably afforded him far more enjoyment than simply drinking them would have. The cup he had sipped from the day before had gone stone cold, but the stasis spell remained strong with the others. Stark was upping the ante. He spent the first part of the day installing motion sensors all over the house, and especially the lab, although Laurel figured that it was more to cover his bases than because he actually expected to catch her out.

The next day, a platter of chocolate chip cookies rested innocently on the kitchen counter where she had grown accustomed to leaving his first beverage of the morning. She stared at it in perplexity. Stark obviously intended it for her, and it was most likely a trap. Not willing to back down from the challenge, she began scanning the treats. Once she had identified every ingredient, and spotted no sedative or poison, she grudgingly took two cookies off the top. She still smelled a rat, but would play his game for the moment.

A few days passed, and she enjoyed a cookie or two each time. Stark was lying low, and so she was taken completely off-guard when she wandered into a bustling Starbucks one morning and spotted the man himself, sporting a pair of dark sunglasses, and hunched over a cup of coffee at a corner table. He had clearly placed himself in a position to get the best view of the counter and simultaneously be able to cut off her retreat. She smirked at his cleverness. He must have gone to a considerable effort to find her. She wasn't even in Malibu proper, but had apparated to a suburb called Westlake Village. She knew that it had been a mistake to come to the same place three days in a row, but what fun is a game with no risks?

He must have somehow infiltrated the coffee chain's computers for the surrounding area, waiting to see when an order that matched his would come up. He had probably thought that this would be his opportunity to see her, because she couldn't remain invisible and still conduct a business transaction. Laurel was cloaking herself from the security cameras, and had placed a mild notice-me-not charm on herself, which she would selectively drop when she reached the counter.

Stark didn't appear to have paid any attention to her entrance. He had his smartphone out and was scowling at it. Laurel felt relieved that several other people stood around the counter waiting to pay or pick up their drinks. Having such a crowd around would make misdirection much easier. When it was her turn, she ordered the usual five drinks for Stark, and a decadent caramel frappuccino for herself, just because she felt daring. Laurel glanced behind her and saw that Stark was staring intently towards the cash register. Her notice-me-not spell appeared to be working, because his eyes kept sliding right past her, but he seemed to be fighting it, concentrating his gaze around the vicinity of the counter. His phone had obviously alerted him to her order, and he knew he was in the presence of his quarry. _Excellent._ On a whim, she also pointed out a chocolate chip muffin and had the barista add it to her tab.

The pretty, bleached-blonde teen working the counter rang up her order, accepting Laurel's handful of bills. Laurel waited impatiently for her drinks to be ready, glancing over her shoulder all the while. She felt a curl of excitement in her gut as Stark abruptly rose from his table and stalked towards the counter. In another moment he would catch her, so she regretfully cast a tripping hex on a woman heading for the door with a tray of iced coffees. Laurel was torn between wincing in sympathy and howling with laughter when she saw Stark pelted with four large iced macchiatos.

He froze, still about halfway across the room, as the woman dabbed at his sodden t-shirt and babbled apologies. His eyes were narrowed, but he looked past her, knowing perfectly well that she wasn't responsible for his current predicament. The 'accident' only delayed his approach by about thirty seconds, but it was long enough to allow Laurel's order to come through. She received her tray of coffees and cast a silent stasis spell over the lot, before singling one out and placing it beside the muffin. She mischievously instructed the barista, "Please deliver this to Tony Stark with my compliments….And if he asks about the muffin, tell him I said he earned it."

Laurel intended to disapparate, but was loath to leave without seeing the look on his face, so she hung back, going from unnoticeable to completely invisible. Stark's reaction amused her. She overheard him interrogating the barista, who faithfully delivered Laurel's message, much to her delight. When he urged the teen to remember who had given her the message, she couldn't seem to recall if the person had been a man or a woman, young or old. He asked to see the receipt, which she allowed, probably only because he was Tony Stark. He appeared stymied when it turned out that the mystery shopper had paid in cash.

Feeling a little guilty and still high on adrenaline, Laurel magicked a fifty dollar bill into the purse of the woman she had tripped, and cast cleansing charms on both her and Stark. The woman didn't appear to notice, but the inventor definitely did. The last things the witch saw before apparating away were his comically widened eyes.

Tony had turned to walk out to his car with his coffee and muffin, when he happened to glance down at his coffee and notice the attached post-it. On it were messily scrawled the words, "_Sorry about the mess_."

"Touché," he thought ruefully, and couldn't help the huge smile he wore all the way home. After all, the muffin was delicious.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Cookies**

After almost getting caught out at Starbucks, Laurel was much more careful, never frequenting the same establishment, and venturing farther afield. She needn't have been so cautious, because Stark had abandoned that particular method of attack. He had reasoned that if he could be mere feet from her and not notice her, then he was unlikely to fare better the next time. Besides, he enjoyed sleeping in.

He continued to talk to the (apparently) empty lab, although it felt less and less empty each day. "I'm learning a lot about you, you know," he began the next morning. "The teleportation, invisibility, the way you spoke to people in the coffee shop and no one remembered you….You didn't show up on any of the security cameras. The hot coffee you brought me over a week ago is still just as hot as the moment it was made (which has so many potential scientific applications I can't even tell you). That woman tripped over nothing to fall into me just as I started to get too close. And then you instantly cleaned up my shirt like the spill never even happened….How do you do it all?"

He didn't seem to expect an answer, but Laurel wanted to give him one anyway. When he removed the lid from his cup of coffee and tossed it away as was his custom, she made the sudden burst of steam hover in the air for a few seconds, spelling out '_Magic_'.

His suddenly shining eyes made her little display completely worth it…until he started rapidly firing questions. She listened in bemusement, as most of them were quite thought-provoking, or just…provoking. Laurel didn't answer him. A large part of her felt frightened at her own daring. She was revealing magic to a muggle—a clever, potentially dangerous muggle. She told herself that everything was still alright because he hadn't seen her face. As long as she remained invisible and anonymous, it didn't matter what he suspected. He would have no way to track her down.

Over time, she became even more solicitous. Stark frequently forgot to eat, and Pepper seldom checked in on him. Laurel began apparating in at different times during the day. She often brought food and left it near his coffee. Usually it was just a sandwich or a small fruit tray, but she delivered other things as well. It embarrassed her to realize that she had observed him so much that she even knew his favorite foods. One of the only things she didn't know was the nature of the drink he usually switched to in the afternoon. It looked dark purple, almost black, through the cloudy Tupperware, and she assumed it was some sort of energy drink. He never looked like he enjoyed the taste, but he religiously chugged large amounts of it every day.

Tony wasn't sure how it had happened that a self-described magical being had apparently taken a liking to him. He had never envisioned such a strange state of affairs, but felt grateful nonetheless. His little game with this invisible creature and the tantalizing information he slowly uncovered proved an excellent distraction from his many worries. In fact, the very thought of his new playmate growing bored and abandoning him sent him into a cold sweat. He knew that he ought to be angry that his privacy was being so flagrantly violated, but the truth was that he thrived under this being's curiosity.

Every day, he came downstairs, telling himself that it wouldn't matter if this was the day no coffee arrived, but the cup always waited faithfully on the counter, rich and hot and fragrant. He couldn't deny that it felt good to have someone care for him, even if it was a stranger, and even if he didn't really understand her motives. But the frequent visits, the snacks that suddenly appeared beside him when he had been working for hours without a break, all these little things comforted him and improved his quality of life. He had always talked to Jarvis, but now he also addressed his unknown visitor. He asked questions, explained his ideas, told stories, made amusing commentary and tempting overtures. Once he even talked about Obadiah.

Sometimes Tony knew someone else was there. He especially experienced this sensation in the evenings, and he preened in the attentive regard of his visitor. He could almost _feel _the amusement in the air after he made a particularly humorous quip (which happened frequently, if he said so himself).

He knew that he could do more to catch this interloper. Tony had several ideas, but he hesitated to implement them, not wanting to drive her away forever. But he longed to retaliate, and feared she would lose interest if he abandoned all attempts at reprisal. He didn't know which way to lean. At first, he had been relentless in his pursuit, but then he had come to appreciate having her around, and had lowered his efforts considerably. But enough time had passed that he felt a little more secure in her attentions, and so he had started pulling his punches a bit less.

In his mind, this magical being was always a _she_. Tony supposed that he could be found guilty of gender stereotyping, because he had labeled this creature a female based on the nurturing role she had assumed in his life. He also found the idea of a woman watching him less unsettling than a man. He liked to imagine what she looked like, although he considered his imaginings 'impressions'. His fantasies were so real to him that he would secretly be deeply disappointed if she turned out to be some sort of tentacle monster or other nonhuman creature. Because he could almost _see_ her. Her eyes would be clear and sharp, her smile swift and wicked. Her voice would be posh like Jarvis' and her laughter bright. Her hands would be steady and her fingers nimble. She would be faithful—the daily coffee runs proved that. She would be clever and mischievous, bold and protective and comforting. She would be…_all that Pepper wasn't_, he thought, and then felt immediately ashamed of the thought. _Pepper_ was the one he wanted. He shouldn't be dreaming about some invisible creature just because he enjoyed the chase…and because he felt like he mattered to her.

At this point in the game, he couldn't dream of telling anyone about his visitor. He had even gone so far as to forbid Jarvis from speaking of his close (and not so close) encounters. And so he began subtly going on the offensive. The motion sensor alarms had done little good, but they had mostly been intended as a diversion. He had continued to leave the cookies out every day, and had noticed that she had taken to eating a couple each time she brought him Starbucks. He suspected that she was just humoring him by accepting the cookies, but he could use that overconfidence against her.

"Never let it be said that Tony Stark can't play the long game," he cackled to himself, slipping back downstairs in the early hours of the morning to replace the cookies with some he had laced with a powerful sedative. She hadn't exactly played fair by tripping that woman in the Starbucks, and turnabout is fair play, after all.

He barely slept the rest of the night due to excitement, and had to avoid popping downstairs way before his usual time. Unfortunately, he hadn't considered the possibility of Happy and Pepper driving over with papers relating to his upcoming court date. When he heard Pepper scream, he bolted down the stairs with only half his goatee trimmed. His heart flew into his throat when he imagined her finding his mystery visitor lying unconscious in his kitchen. The thought of the inevitable questions made him feel strangely protective of his magical stalker. He didn't want Pepper to see her while she was vulnerable. Pepper hadn't _earned _it.

He nearly burst into hysterical laughter when he saw Happy's familiar form sprawled out next to the dishwasher with a half-eaten cookie in his hand. Tony should have expected this, of course. His magical friend was far too cagey to fall for this trick, despite his attempts to lull her into a false sense of security by the several benign batches of cookies. No, this trick had been far too obvious, he thought, noticing for the first time that this morning's Starbucks cup rested on the counter in its usual spot. He had definitely struck out. His lips quirked when he noticed a post-it on the side of the cup, on which a sardonic '_Nice try_' had been scribbled.

Tony had had to do some pretty fast thinking, because it wouldn't do to admit that he was at home playing 'Ghostbusters' while Pepper attended boring meetings on his behalf. He quickly looked away from the cup, not wanting to draw her attention to it and encourage a whole new set of questions.

"Tony, call the police! I think Happy's been poisoned. He's breathing, but he won't wake up," Pepper shrieked, glancing up and noticing him for the first time.

Immediately he was swamped with guilt. "No, Pep. It's nothing serious. I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights, so I laced the cookies with a sedative. I didn't think anyone else would find them," he said contritely.

"You put tranquilizers in the cookies?" she asked incredulously, pale blue eyes widening.

Tony rubbed the unshaven side of his face nervously and moved to squat beside Happy. He eyed a bit of drool that dangled precariously from his head of security's mouth for a few conflicted moments, before finally shrugging, pulling out his phone and snapping a picture. Pepper eyed him in disbelief, outrage at his insensitive behavior broadcast on her pretty, girl-next-door features. Tony lifted Happy, dragging him into his living room by his beefy armpits, and using the change of venue as an opportunity to look away from Pepper's accusing stare. As soon as he got his breath back, and his friend comfortably situated, Tony answered her earlier accusation.

"I thought I could combine a sleep aid with a delicious midnight snack. Might even be a marketable idea, who knows? …Anyway, sorry about Happy. He's become yet another casualty of science…. He can sleep it off on the couch. In three hours, he'll be as good as new…but I'll get someone else to take you back to the office of course," he rambled, trying to school his expression, because disappointment, embarrassment and hilarity were all struggling for primacy, and he wasn't sure which one would win.

"Tony, I just…I don't….You're just so….Sign the papers, Tony. And take care of Happy," she said finally, looking away from him.

In alarm, Tony realized that she had _gotten emotional_. "Pep, why are you crying? He'll be fine, I promise," he blurted repentantly.

"You just don't get it, Tony!" she exclaimed, swiping her eyes. "You don't think about anybody but yourself. Do you know how scared I was when Happy collapsed? I thought he was going to die! And there you are taking funny photos of him while he's lying _unconscious_ on your kitchen floor. I don't know what to do with you. I really don't. You are_ so _insensitive," she sniffled.

"Pep! Stop! Wait! I can delete the photo….Will that be okay? And I promise not to drug any more food," he exclaimed, dropping the heavy arm that he had been arranging over Happy's chest. It made a muted thud as it hit the side of the sofa.

"It's not about the photo! It's about how you _are_. I just don't know if I can do this. I don't know how I _ever_ thought I could do this. You're impossible. You just make everything so hard," she ranted tearfully, not noticing how his posture stiffened more and more with each word.

"Pepper, are you dumping me?" he asked, all levity having vanished like mist.

She wiped her eyes with a tissue from the package in her purse, took a shuddering breath and answered tightly, "No, Tony. To dump you would first require being in a real relationship, and I think we both know that you're not capable of one of those….You never have been."

Pepper glanced up at him for the first time since she had started speaking, and felt almost frightened at the look on his face. For a moment, it occurred to her that she had never really known this man. Eyes that had always looked on her with warmth and sunshine were overshadowed with clouds that whispered dark promises of an ice age. He had clenched his jaw so tightly that it looked like a tooth could shatter any moment, and his eyes roiled with such emotions that she ducked her head away, finding herself irrationally unable to look at him.

"We're too entangled with each other to take a break, but I think that you need to gain a sense of responsibility," she murmured woodenly, still staring fixedly at the corner of the glass-topped table.

"Pepper, I _am_ responsible. I'm a full-time superhero, CEO of one of the world's wealthiest companies, and the technological innovator whose inventions keep us in business. I'm a philanthropist, a boyfriend, a public speaker…just how many more responsibilities will I have to take on before I meet your standards?" he demanded, voice raw with outraged hurt.

She sucked in a breath and brushed back a lock of flaming hair. "That's what I'm talking about. You're unreliable, and clearly can't handle the responsibilities you've already taken on, and so I'll be doing you a favor if I remove one of them. If you don't have to worry about being a boyfriend-"

"No! You want to take one of my responsibilities, take on CEO. Be my CEO, Pepper," he suddenly entreated, looking more like himself. Whatever emotional upheaval he had experienced, he had managed to conceal just as quickly.

"Be serious, Tony. I know that this business might not be important to you, but it is to me. I've got to get back to the office," she replied in annoyance, thinking that he was making a joke of her emotions.

"Let me have someone pick you up, or you can take one of my cars," he offered halfheartedly, realizing that she had hardly heard his words, and had valued them even less.

Having rallied her courage and regained her equilibrium, Pepper took the opportunity to get in one last jab. "Don't bother. I sent for a cab. See you at your Expo, Tony," she called, in a shuttered, dismissive voice.

After she left, Tony felt unusually restless. Hurt and outraged pride bubbled in his gut, and he spent a couple of hours in the gym. He ran on the treadmill for over an hour, trying to escape his miserable, disappointed thoughts. He usually opted to jog outside, but wanted to be within earshot of Happy when he awoke.

His thoughts turned, as they often did, to his mystery guest. He felt irrationally angry with her for a moment, and then laughed bitterly at himself. It wasn't the Coffee Bandit's fault that their game had exposed the rotten, hollow center of his relationship with Pepper. But he still resented his magical interloper, because now when he died, and it wouldn't be long, he would be alone. His organs sustained more damage from the poison each day. The shrapnel near his heart was inoperable, which made the arc reactor indispensable. As long as it leeched palladium into his body, he had no chance. And he couldn't do without it. For some reason, no element but palladium would do. Sometimes he felt like standing in the center of his lab and screaming, "_Heal me!_" to his magical visitor.

But he knew the effort would be futile. Not only would it be desperate and presumptuous, but no one had that kind of power. Tony had several theories on making invisibility and teleportation possible. Those ideas popped up in science fiction all the time, and could conceivably be achieved by men. On the other hand, magically healing the dying fell under the purview of gods.

Perhaps Pepper would forgive him if he made a grand gesture, he reasoned. He toyed with ideas for a while before he heard the unmistakable sound of a groaning Happy heaving his bulk into a sitting position. He hoped the man would be a good sport, because he didn't need another falling out today.

Fortunately, Happy had become inured to his friend's eccentricities and let the whole debacle slide after a few grumbled complaints and a glass of Tony's prized scotch. Pepper made no attempts to get into contact with him, which left him both worried and relieved. Deciding to throw himself into a familiar pursuit, he spent the rest of that day and the next on his plan of attack. This game had begun to feel a bit like a strange courtship, him pursuing her, mutual gift-giving….Tony willed himself to stop thinking about that _right now_.

He set up his ambush in the lab, where it would be less noticeable than in the kitchen. Tony worked diligently to have everything in place by early afternoon. He sensed the foreign presence much more clearly in the evenings, and so he had planned accordingly. The next morning, he would have either have a captive to question…or a free and very angry supernatural being.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Going Green**

The next morning, Laurel delivered his coffee to the kitchen, and then proceeded to the lab with the rest of the tray. She suspected that Stark was still regrouping from his most recent attempt to unmask her, and so she behaved a little less warily than she should have. The moment she placed the coffees on the work bench, a net of metal cords, woven as fine as spider silk, exploded around her, knocking coffee and papers to the ground and binding her fast.

She barely had time to raise a shield to prevent the tiny wires from coming into contact with her skin. An alarm sounded, and she heard a loud whoop from somewhere upstairs. Jarvis was talking, but Laurel paid no attention to his words. She wondered about the cords, because Stark knew she could apparate, but then she sensed that there was more to her chains than she had expected. An electric current ran through the metal, but almost as soon as the buzzing started, it stopped. As if waiting for its cue, one of the robots wheeled towards her, holding a small metal cylinder. Her paranoia caused her to react instantly, apparating across the room before the robot could deploy its strange weapon. She had thought it was some sort of knockout gas, but realized its true purpose with a mixture of intrigue and horror moments later. Even several yards away, she could feel her body lock up a little bit. If she were closer, she would be completely paralyzed by now.

The idea of winding up frozen and completely at Stark's mercy unsettled her. He was beginning to go to more drastic lengths to catch her, and she needed to decide soon whether he could be trusted to remain humane in the face of scientific discovery. Impulsively, Laurel decided to test him.

Seconds had passed since the net had deployed, and she knew she had only moments before Stark came barging in to find his trap empty. She summoned the paralytic from the robot, placing it in the space she had recently occupied inside the net. With a deft bit of transfiguration, the device became a puppy, and not just any puppy—a crup. Although the wires no longer carried an electrical current, she carefully shielded the small animal.

All at once, Stark burst into the room, breathing heavily and wearing his Iron Man gauntlets on his wrists. Interesting. Perhaps his trap had required more courage than she had anticipated, because the gauntlets made it very clear that he wasn't underestimating her. When he saw the pup, he stopped short, and his mouth grew slack. "Jarvis? What's going on? Am I dealing with a shape-shifter?" he demanded, eying the frisky puppy with consternation.

"I don't believe so, sir. Perhaps you ought to watch the footage of the event in question," the AI suggested delicately.

He ignored the softly whining dog for the moment, and peered at the viewing screen with fascination, observing how the cords had molded themselves around a distinctly human-shaped body. As the silhouette disappeared, and the chains began to collapse inward, Tony blinked and commanded, "Jarvis, go back."

This time he watched carefully, and actually saw the small silver neuro-paralyzer fly out of Dummy's grasp and land in the empty net. Quickly deactivating the net, he searched all over for the small sonic device, checking under the furniture and then digging through the metallic mesh. It wasn't there. The puppy was. It all pointed to one inescapable conclusion. "It's been turned into a living thing," he breathed, awed and a little frightened at the possibilities.

Just what was he dealing with here? Some sort of ancient demigod? Perhaps an alien with the desire to scope out the best of earth's technology. He wasn't flattering himself when he acknowledged that she had come to the right place. But with powers like hers, he sincerely doubted that he had anything she would consider worth her time. He would feel like a fool if she turned out to be a villain, but could hardly bring himself to consider that theory. The pieces just didn't fit. What sort of bad guy would worry about his eating habits and keep coming back week after week?

Tony felt incredibly guilty about using the paralysis device, which Obie had once turned against him to devastating effect, but hadn't been able to think of how else to secure her. Titanium-alloy ropes were of little use against a being that could teleport, and an electric shock would only freeze her movement for a few moments. She would still have been long gone by the time he had made it downstairs if he hadn't resorted to desperate measures. But it appeared that both his fears and hopes had been futile, because she had eluded him once again.

* * *

Laurel disapparated, standing in her darkened hotel room, gasping for breath and laughing in exhilaration. That had been an _extremely_ close call, but instead of making her question the sanity of her current course, it had had rather the opposite effect. Somewhere along the way-after fighting basilisks, riding dragons, hunting horcruxes and battling dark wizards-she had gotten a little addicted to danger. Pitting her wits and magic against Stark's genius and technology was the most fun she had had…possibly ever.

And she liked him. It was really impossible not to. Tony Stark was…wonderful. He was fun personified, breathing life and vigor into everything around him. His was the unique mind that gave Jarvis consciousness; taught himself to fly…and in every way proved himself to be the superior son of a stellar father.

Laurel realized that it would be better for her and Stark if she cut ties and walked away, but she'd come much too far for that. The witch felt a little embarrassed that she had sunk to using her powers to stalk a celebrity, but could no more have ignored his shining existence than she could have excised her own magic. Besides, she reasoned casually, it wasn't as though he didn't enjoy it. After all, she wasn't Peeves or _Moaning Myrtle_. With a grin, she wondered how the inventor would have handled _them_.

Laurel enjoyed thinking about what the genius would have made of the wizarding world. His limitless curiosity and scientific mind would have revolutionized it. She had yet to unpack her bottomless bag, and kept it on her at all times. Sometimes she would inventory the piles of magical products and materials that she had acquired for her adventure. Every time she came across anything remotely interesting, her first instinct was always to show it to Stark. She had grown addicted to putting a look of wonder on his face, and spent a fair amount of time daydreaming about which spells and magical objects would impress him. She owned a large roll of dragon-hide, and mentally pictured him running tests on it. He would be intrigued by firewhiskey, the Monster Book of Monsters, pensieves, joke products from WWW...In fact, he would probably see applications for all of them that she'd never dreamed of.

She grinned to herself when she imagined being the one to reveal all the marvels of magic to him. He was a man that would truly appreciate them….But these were just her fantasies, rather than plans for the future, because if he knew about magic, he would want to conduct research, and his research could always be stolen and turned against her. The magic-user doubted that even Jarvis was impenetrable. Tony Stark and his alter-ego, Iron Man, were very public figures, and any companions would be as well. She feared the careful scrutiny of the media, government agencies, militaries, villains, competitors….She knew that she had a difficult choice to make in the near future. This game was fun, but she and Stark couldn't remain in limbo forever. Either she would have to disappear, or he would catch her. And if he caught her, she would owe him some answers. It would be only sporting.

In concern for the future, she had sat down a few days ago with books of spells strewn all over the bed and discovered a charm that some equally paranoid magical had created, which made blood disappear the moment it left the body so that it could never be used for nefarious purposes. She had never heard of anyone employing this spell before, but assumed that was because it was in parseltongue. Also, it would probably be much easier to bleed to death if no one knew how much blood you had already lost. But to her, the risk was more than acceptable.

She had noticed a few years ago that she wasn't shedding hair and skin cells. The cells didn't seem to be dying. And she was still young—not yet thirty, but she hadn't aged a day since she'd hit her prime. This served as yet another reason (she must be mad to need more) why showing her true face to these muggles was extremely inadvisable. If anyone had the slightest idea that she possessed eternal youth, she would need to develop eyes on the back of her head. The sorceress could envision how marketable she would be to any lab. Even one of her tissue samples would be beyond price, and she shuddered at the idea of a bounty being placed on her head.

It was imperative that she find a more secure place to live, but she still thought like an alien visitor in this new world, and the idea of putting down roots made her feel rather conflicted. Besides, she spent hardly any time at all in her hotel room. It was for sleeping, and occasionally brewing a potion or doing a little research that would involve looking through more than one book at a time.

She had made a set of intricately carved ward-stones, and carried them in her bag. There were six in total, and every night, she placed them around the perimeter of her room. Each linked to the stone closest to it, and ended up forming a sphere that stretched above and below the room, as well its circumference. She gathered them up each morning, and they gave her a little peace of mind. The witch was starting to get the itch to set up wards around Stark's mansion—nothing too over-the-top like the Fidelius Charm, but perhaps some intent-based wards. Unfortunately, she hardly thought that she could get away with digging up the perimeter of his property without him noticing—especially now that he was on high alert, but it was an idea for the future, if she ever revealed herself.

Although Tony-watching took up quite a bit of her time, Laurel had many other pursuits. Some days she felt like a pilgrim in a strange land, free of all the restrictions imposed by her mother country. She reveled in all the aspects of her new-found independence, even simple things like foregoing the heavy, ungainly witches' robes. But she also felt more than a little lost, and Tony was her anchor in this new world. He was the one constant, a warm hearth-fire that drew her irresistibly each evening.

Having been stifled for so long, it was hard to find a purpose. It was true that she had enjoyed a few years abroad after the war, but those had mostly been spent cloistered in study. The young witch had often gone for weeks without having a decent conversation with anyone in an effort to hide her identity. She had grown even more withdrawn and introspective as a result, and this mindset had carried over to her new life, contributing to the alienation she felt from the muggles.

Oftentimes, she wandered invisible, because it was easier to be herself without fear of reprisal. If she happened to be in a run-down area of a city, she could fix it up with a few well-aimed _reparos_, and no one be the wiser. She liked to mend broken things, and did it a lot, drawing on her skill at transfiguration. Sometimes she hopped to cities overseas and repaired things there, getting to see something of the world at the same time. But she always returned to Malibu. Tony Stark had made many requests of her, but the one thing he had never asked her to do was leave.

Laurel tried to keep busy and to take life one day at a time, but sometimes it wasn't enough. Countless nights she rose from sleep and paced moodily to her hotel room's balcony, feeling the cooling breeze on her face, drinking in the rhythmic sound of the waves, and trying not to choke on her loneliness. On these particular nights, it was a strain not to give into the urge to summon a dead person from her old life. She didn't know if she would still be able to reach them in this new place, but suspected that death transcended all boundaries. It would have eased her spirit to talk to Sirius, Remus, her parents…even Snape or Colin Creevy. But she didn't want to be a bother and interrupt their 'next great adventure' so they could listen to her whinging. Also, the fear of finding out definitively that she was unable to contact them-that they had finally passed beyond her reach-was so soul-rending that it usually succeeded in dousing the temptation.

In her heart, she suspected that she had become someone that her parents and Sirius probably wouldn't approve of. Over the years, she had evolved from the open-hearted infant they had loved into an almost unrecognizable figure. First she had changed into a secretive child, the kind that hoards food and watches adults through narrowed eyes. When she had entered the wizarding world, Laurel had been forced into a chameleon role, wanting nothing more than to fly under the radar, but continually hustled into the limelight by destiny…and Albus-the-insufferable-old-man-Dumbledore.

That distrustful child had grown into a ruthless, battle-scarred veteran—and most of those scars were on her soul. She naturally did things now that would have been reprehensible to her when she was younger. She obliviated on occasion, and had even used the Imperius Curse a couple of…okay, _seven_ times. If those crimes weren't damning enough, she also frequently employed legilimency to scan the intentions of others, because it was so _easy_ with muggles. They had no mental shields and practically projected their thoughts into her mind. Laurel hadn't done this to Stark though. He was sacrosanct.

Things weren't all bad. She had explored and studied things that she never would have dreamed of had she stayed in the wizarding world. She had discovered the wonders of Shakespeare, _Star Wars_, Rembrandt, The Beatles, the internet and Einstein….Speaking of an Einstein, she supposed that Stark could use an explanation for her most recent gift…and more coffee, because his had spilled when she'd sprung his trap. Bringing more would show that she harbored no ill-will. Satisfied with this course of action, Laurel sat down at the small desk and pulled the stationary towards her. Vanishing the hotel's logo from the paper, she swiftly set about writing a note. The gift would require a little justification.

Secretly, she had always wanted a crup, from the moment she'd found out about them. They had been banned at Hogwarts because they were territorial and displayed an almost shocking level of loyalty to their masters. They were also frightfully intelligent, and able to gain entrance almost anywhere. According to tradition, the house elves hadn't been able to keep them from sneaking into the kitchens even with their powerful magic. It seemed like a fitting companion for Stark, who loved his robots, but might also appreciate something warm and alive to hold every now and then. Merlin knew that _she _would.

She didn't worry about the dog she had sent as a canary into the coalmine. If Stark began painful experiments on the creature, she could rescue it. If she gave _herself_ away to Stark, and his thirst for knowledge ended up outweighing his humanity, no one would come to save her. To be honest though, only a very small part of her still expected betrayal from that quarter. The man might be sarcastic and flamboyant in public, but he had the heart of a hero. His celebrity status frightened her far more than he himself did. The last thing she wanted was to draw the covetous eye of government agencies and their military scientists. A friendship with Tony Stark, Iron Man himself, would make it an inevitability.

* * *

Back at the lab, Tony approached the dog warily. It was a small creature, and looked up at him with bright, intelligent eyes…which were green. _As was its coat._ The lighter parts of its hair made up the majority of its body. The fur that would have been white on another dog was a distinct pale green on this one. Its ears and forehead were sable, and it looked a bit like a cross between a Pomeranian and a Jack Russell terrier. It had a rather fluffy coat that looked incredibly soft, and a foxlike face with a short snout. One ear flopped over and the other didn't, giving it the rakish air of one wearing an Australian bush hat. Most noticeable of all, however, were the two tails that beat a muted tattoo on the cold tile. The wagging increased in tempo when the dog realized that it had Tony's full attention.

Gingerly lifting the creature into his arms, the inventor began to inspect it, marveling at its warm, supple weight in his hands. He had never had any pets, preferring to make them himself. After all, if you ended up with a stupid dog, you couldn't exactly upgrade its software. But none of his old reservations applied now, because this was a _magic_ dog. He had expected anger and retribution from his magical guest if he failed to capture her, but she had surprised him once again, rewarding his cheek with generosity.

"Jarvis, order everything this little guy needs and have it delivered today," he ordered, still peering intently at the puppy, and gently inspecting its paws and bifurcated tail.

"Mr. Stark, _eleven o'clock_," Jarvis hinted, and Tony spun around, immediately spotting new coffee to replace what had spilled.

Lodged underneath the tray was a piece of stationary, filled with the small, spiky, rather careless script that he recognized from his post-its. Shifting the pup's weight to one hand, he used the other to lift the note, and immediately began smiling at her familiar, starchy prose.

"_Mr. Stark, I had not realized the lengths you were willing to go to meet me, and feel you should be rewarded for your…boldness and ingenuity. I have a gift for you. This animal is a crup—a magical creature, which will grow up to resemble a common Jack Russell terrier. Yours is currently the only one in the world. By now, you will have noticed the two tails. This is the most visible difference between a crup and the common canine, but far from the only one. Magical owners used to remove one tail so that their crups could better blend in, but I find the practice cruel and unnecessary. He is yours, and you are, of course, welcome to do as you will, but the second tail can be explained away as a genetic mutation. With your status, people probably expect your pet to be a bit unusual. _

"_Crups are incredibly intelligent, much smarter than any dog or ape. They are also very loyal, and have an innate ability to sense when someone has ill-will towards their owner. I have created him to be sterile, and cast an enchantment so that every time he excretes anything, every trace will instantly vanish. He doesn't shed, and will prove a good friend to you. You may take him to a regular vet. The usual innoculations will not hurt him, although they are unnecessary. Despite his somewhat mundane appearance, this creature has magical blood, which will manifest in many ways. He will heal quickly, age slowly, and be more or less immune to normal illnesses. Once he chooses you as his master, his life will be bound to yours. Unless he is killed by unnatural causes, he will take his last breath at the same moment as you, and will be a true friend to the death. Regards, Your Former Captive (however briefly)_"

Would he be able to resist the temptation to experiment on this creature that had found its way to him?

* * *

**Four Days Later**

"Tony!" a low, authoritative voice drifted down the stairs.

The engineer sighed, removing his face-plate and wiping the grease and hydraulic fluid off his hands and onto his black wife-beater. "Come on, you little Brussels sprout," he quipped to the puppy, who had been perched on a stool watching him.

The dog loved to be up high, and was quite an impressive jumper, considering its small size. When it grew a little bigger, Tony suspected that it would be able to get onto the stool by itself. The moment its feet touched the ground, it officiously led the way upstairs, its two funny little tails making him grin as he watched it walk. As the scientist reached the living room, he was met with the amusing sight of Rhodey trying to fend off Dummy, who was making several aborted charges at him in an effort to seize his uniform hat.

"Dummy, that's enough!" Tony called, and then turned a smirking face to Rhodey. "I'm sorry about that. He's a little out-of-sorts today. I had to punish him by sending him upstairs after he tried to force-feed the little guy."

He gestured at the green and sable ball of fur that was looking up at the interloper with intelligent, vividly green eyes. Dummy gave an indignant whistle and Tony turned to it and declared firmly, "No! I warned you after you shot him with the water cannon."

Trying to ignore the sulking robot, he spun back towards his friend and explained in a whisper, "I think he's just jealous. After I made You, he misbehaved for a week. Pretty soon, he'll get used to the new kid and then they'll be the best of friends."

"I doubt it," muttered the other man.

"Oh, I think they'll find they have a lot in common," and he snickered as though he had said something hilarious.

"What, like living in the lab and not getting fed?" Rhodey inquired, looking at the dog askance. It returned the gesture.

"Of course not! Most days we go for a walk, or he runs errands for me. And anyway, he's really resourceful. If he can't find any food, he lets Jarvis know," Tony said breezily.

His friend didn't deign to respond to that comment, wondering if Tony grasped that he had just confessed to letting his dog forage for its own food…and apparently run errands. Dogs didn't do that, did they? Still reeling from surprise, the sinewy pilot remarked dully, "You got a dog…a mutant dog."

"Uh…yeah, I've had the little guy for a few days now. And he's not a mutant," Tony innocently retorted. "He just has a rare color. Some green dogs were just born in Spain, and more in New Orleans. Something about amniotic fluid mixing with the placenta. But he's my good little buddy, _yes he is_," the inventor cooed at the dog, which perked its ears and wagged its twin tails vigorously.

Tony was relieved that he had googled 'dogs born green' and actually gotten some legitimate results. Otherwise, he would have just had to tell people that he dyed its fur, and could imagine how _that_ would have gone over. He shuddered to think of what Pepper would have said on the matter.

The colonel eyed him as though he were slow. "I _meant_ the _tails_," he enunciated carefully.

"I suppose that _is_ a mutation, but I like it. Now I've gotten used to them, and I don't think he'd look right with just one tail," he confided, scooping the dog up in his callused hands.

The puppy licked him on the nose, drawing an affectionate smile from the scientist.

"I'm almost scared to hear what you named it. Didn't you name your robots 'You' and 'Dummy', or something like that? So, what do you call it…'Spot'?" Rhodey asked derisively.

Matter-of-factly, Tony answered, "No. _Spock_."

In response to Rhodey's look of disbelief, the inventor added, "It was either that or 'Loki'—you know, the Norse god of mischief. But he's a highly logical dog, so I settled on 'Spock'."

About this time, Laurel had arrived in the lab and heard the voices coming from the stairwell. Softly climbing the stairs, and unknowingly activating the pressure sensors, she heard Tony showing his friend all the things his dog had already learned. "Sing, Spock," he commanded, and the little dog threw back its head and let out adorably musical howls. Even Rhodey secretly had to admit that the dog stayed on pitch fairly well.

"He's even better with actual musical accompaniment. Went crazy when he heard the pseudo-operatic part of 'Bohemian Rhapsody', so I started playing opera for him. You should hear him do _Carmen. _He's a great little mezzo-soprano," the engineer enthused, digging around in his jeans' pocket for a treat.

Oblivious to Rhodey's consternation, he continued blithely, "He likes classic rock pretty well, but hates metal—which is ironic," the engineer snickered, as if at an inside joke.

"He's not a robot, is he?" the other inquired slightly accusingly.

Tony paused and blinked at him. "Well, no….He's not _perfect_, Rhodey," he said a bit defensively.

He finally found what he had been searching for and balanced it precariously on the nose of the pup, which seemed to be taking the process very seriously. It waited patiently until Tony said, "Okay!" and then tossed its head and delicately snagged the small bone from the air. The engineer applauded its efforts.

Rhodey eyed him as if he feared for his sanity. Suddenly, Jarvis' cool, detached voice announced, "Mr. Stark. _Code 51_."

Stark gasped. He had never expected for his sensors in the stairwell to pay off. "Is there a problem?" his friend asked, knitting his brows at Tony's distracted state.

"Just a…uh…little problem downstairs. Not important! …Why don't you sit down and we can talk about army stuff?" he urged, shooting frequent glances towards the stairs, practically twitching with the desire to make his way to that side of the room.

"Don't you mean 'air force'?" he asked drily, lifting a finely shaped eyebrow.

"Yeah, sure. Those guys. The boys in green…or blue. One of the ocean colors," Stark babbled, not really listening or paying attention to the fact that his friend was standing right in front of him wearing his uniform.

Tony wasn't trying to be rude, but was squirming with anticipation to see what the Passive Infrared Detector (PID) had made of his guest in the stairwell. If he was lucky, he would finally get to add a body shape to the smattering of knowledge he possessed about his ghostly visitor. Coupled with the information with the pressure sensors, he would be able to gauge height, weight and probably sex. If it worked, he would install infrared sensors throughout the lab. Then he would not only always know when he had company, but also her exact position.

Rhodey rolled his eyes in exasperation, wondering at the change in his friend. Tony was always unpredictable, but that performance with the dog had been a little bizarre even for him. "Are you okay, Tony? You seem a little…off," he remarked dubiously.

To his surprise, Tony sobered immediately, staring at him ponderingly for several long moments, as though debating the merits of something. It seemed the perfect time to inform Rhodey about his condition if he was going to. The engineer actually opened his mouth to speak, but the words turned to ash on his tongue.

Why should he inflict this additional pain on his friend, who already had enough to deal with, just for whatever emotional support he might offer Tony? That wasn't really how their friendship worked. They shared a love of flying and gadgets, not hugs and tearful conversations.

Everyone was always telling him how selfish and_ irresponsible_ he was. Well, they could take_ this_ for responsibility—he would carry the burden of _death_ on his own. Rhodey wouldn't be able to help him, and it would only worry him needlessly. He would still grieve when he found out Tony had died in an accident, but at least he wouldn't experience the helplessness and suffering leading up to the event.

Besides, telling Rhodey might not only be selfish, but actively harmful. What if he tried to stop Tony from ending himself in his own way? What if he told Pepper? Or his superiors? The genius liked Rhodey-he owed him his life-and trusted him in many different areas. The air force colonel would stick his neck out for him as far as he was able, and would probably even take a bullet for him. But loyalty rarely crossed all boundaries.

The inventor knew the day was swiftly approaching when Rhodey's friendship with him would come into conflict with his loyalty to his command. The colonel's camaraderie with the billionaire inventor had been seen as a great asset by his superior officers when it had been time to hand out promotions; but he knew that would change the moment it looked like he was even _considering_ taking Tony's side against theirs. In that case, his brilliant career would be irrevocably scuppered. Tony didn't want that to happen to him. Rhodey was exceptional at his job, and loved it besides. The engineer couldn't conceive of being the ruin of his friend—not that it would ever come to that.

Tony would never ask him to take his side—partly because it would be unfair, but mostly because he had no doubts as to the outcome. He refused to deceive himself about the other's hierarchy of loyalties. Rhodey had been in the air force long before he met him, and would still be a part of it long after Tony died. It was a no-brainer that he would follow his orders, and it was looking almost certain that those orders would be to acquire Tony's suits by any means necessary….No, he decided, he most certainly could _not_ tell Rhodey about his illness.

He resisted the urge to run a hand over his puffy eyes, answering with false brightness, "I'm great, Rhodey. Just a few sleepless nights. You know—getting ready for the Expo. It's going to be huge. I've been developing the Mark V, but the Mark IV is ready and I'm planning to wear it to kick off the ceremony."

"You know, it's a shame that the Mark II is just sitting downstairs going to waste," Rhodey hinted, absentmindedly tracing a finger over the sofa's buttery leather.

Tony mentally sighed. Rhodey's bosses must already be putting the pressure on, because he had been dropping oblique (and sometimes uncomfortably direct) requests for his older armor almost every time he visited for the past several months—ever since the Mark III had come on the scene. Playing dumb, the inventor replied in mock-outrage, "My armor is never _wasted_. I reuse components all the time and am constantly improving the suits. If one gets damaged, I need backups."

"Do you really need _three_ back-ups?" the colonel asked reproachfully.

"Well, the patent office seems to think it's my prerogative. If anyone disagrees, they're welcome to take me to court….I'm going to need a drink if we're going to start debating economic ideologies. Want one?" he offered a bit shortly, standing and walking jerkily over to the wet bar.

Tony wasn't _angry_. It was more that he hated the continual indications that his friend had an agenda. They couldn't just be together and enjoy each other's company anymore. Rhodey probably had to go back to the base and debrief every time he dropped by Tony's house. And just because he understood the colonel's position didn't mean that he wanted to be reminded of it forcibly every other second.

_What was Rhodey's rush? Couldn't he wait the few weeks it would take for Tony to die before appropriating an Iron Man suit?_ The engineer tried to quell these harsh thoughts. The approach of death occasionally gave him bouts of spite and resentment, but they were usually quickly and brutally suppressed. He just felt tired all the time. And _sore._ No amount of stretches and exercise made the aches and weakness go away. Judging by his body's worsening condition, it was frighteningly evident that the poison was at work.

He and Rhodey were very different, but sincerely cared about each other. In fact, Tony had already entered his friend's bio-metric data into his suits' security features. When he died, Rhodey would be Iron Man's successor. Just as Pepper would ascend to CEO of Stark Industries. In return for their variable support over the years, his two best friends would inherit everything and hopefully carry on his legacy.

"Just water…and I hear that you _are _being sued. That subpoena from the Armed Services Committee should be headed your way any day now," his friend answered, quietly changing the subject and not letting the other's mood swing affect him.

Tony poured the drinks in contemplative silence, quietly directing Dummy (who was still in Butler-mode) back to the lab after the robot rolled over to the bar and made an attempt to take the glass from him. "I don't suppose it'll do any good to tell you that it's too early for drinking," Rhodey added mildly, stretching his long legs out in front of the couch and unsettling the puppy, who rose in righteous indignation and took a few further steps away, before lying down with its head on his paws, staring up at him with worrying intensity.

The engineer let out a slightly bitter laugh, but covered it up by retorting cheerily, "Has it ever before?"

"It's never too late to act your age," the other remarked drily, leaning back slightly in his seat and relaxing his stiff military bearing.

With a roll of his dark eyes, Tony recapped the water bottle and stowed it away. "I know that nothing's come of the threats before, but you might actually have cause to worry this time. Justin Hammer is already lined up to testify against you," the slender man related, his honest eyes proclaiming his concern for the engineer.

"Hammer is one of those rare individuals that prefers his humiliations to take place publicly and with as large an audience as possible. Who am I to deny him?" Tony quipped, dropping into his seat and handing over the water.

Stark took an appreciative sip of his drink, enjoying the icy, purifying burn of the scotch. "Tony…what's up with your dog? He keeps staring at me…angrily," the officer declared, shifting uncomfortably under that accusatory bright green gaze.

"Oh, he's fine. You bumped him, didn't you? He likes his personal space," Tony said dismissively, reaching down to stroke one soft ear.

Laurel had never met one of Tony's friends before, and was curious about the man. He seemed much more formal and level-headed than the exuberant engineer; but she could tell from the nature of his projected thoughts that he meant Tony no harm.

For a while, Laurel had shamelessly eavesdropped on their conversation, placing a notice-me-not charm on herself in addition to her other concealing spells. She always did this when the pup was around now, after having almost been unmasked the first night Tony had had it. She had forgotten that crups were magical creatures, able to sense magical energy. This one had been drawn to her immediately, hopping to its feet and trotting over to where she had lounged in the corner.

Remembering that Luna had claimed to have cast a notice-me-not charm on herself whenever she went traipsing through the jungles in search of mythical creatures, Laurel had hoped that it would work just as well to hide her from the crup, even though Luna had been in a magical forest (and her quarry probably hadn't existed), while Laurel was the only magical person in an enclosed space. Mercifully, it seemed to have worked, because when she had apparated to the other side of the room and cast the charm, the crup hadn't followed.

It would have been extremely embarrassing to have been detected that way—by something she had made herself—hoisted by her own petard as it were. Occasionally, she knew the crup sensed her. It would look up sometimes if she moved very much, and she suspected it felt the vibrations or the movement of the air. The creatures were known to have very sensitive ears.

All of her worries with Tony and the dog proved unfounded. The man was too tender-hearted for his own good. He was besotted with that puppy. He did perform experiments on it, but they were never invasive, and always with the dog's full participation. The tests were usually designed to test its intelligence, although sometimes Tony would coax it to do something 'magical'. He spoke to it like it was a person, or one of his robots, and the dog responded shockingly well to the consideration, cooperating with Tony and spending hours watching him work. The engineer was even teaching it the names of some of the tools.

Judging by the inventor's frequent, not-so-subtle glances towards the stairwell, and Jarvis' unexplained 'code' earlier, Laurel felt certain that Ton—_Stark_ (Oh, who was she kidding? In her mind, she had been calling him Tony for days now.) knew she was in the house. She had begun to comprehend the genius inventor, and sensed that he was a man after her own heart. He would never divulge her existence to his friend, if he had managed so long without telling Pepper. He liked this game as much as she did, and understood that it was strictly between the two of them. She suspected that he would take great pains to hide her presence from this military man. Grinning roguishly, she decided it was time to have a little fun with the inimitable Mr. Stark.

The men chatted about Hammer Industries' contract with the military for a while before they moved on to the second sensitive subject of the day. "You must have really done something to set off Pepper. She sent me over to see whether you'd drunk yourself to death yet," Rhodey murmured ironically.

"You know, I don't really consume much alcohol these days," he defended, torn between feeling pleased that Pepper had wanted someone to check on him and concerned that she was still too angry to do it herself.

The other man grinned, lifting his drink in the air toward Stark in an ironic toast. "Except for now, of course, at…fifteen-hundred in the afternoon….Be careful, Tony. Pepper's one of a kind and you're not the only one who's noticed. She spends all day with cultured, successful businessmen," Rhodey declared, taking another long swallow of his water.

Tony grimaced at his words, but couldn't fault the truth of them. As they lapsed into silence, Tony almost choked when he noticed Rhodey's drink suddenly turn bright purple.

Next, the officer's cover levitated off the cushion beside him and lazily floated over his head, revolving in a slow circle about six inches above his closely cropped black hair. Tony gazed wide-eyed, but the colonel didn't notice, and continued speaking, "It's not like she doesn't get offers, and we both know that she's light-years too good for you….I don't want to see you throw away the best thing that's ever happened to you."

Tony didn't reply, but his eyes were as big as galleons. All the furniture in his line of sight had risen slowly into the air, stopping a few feet from the vaulted ceiling and hovering there.

Creeping up behind the couch, Laurel found herself closer to Tony than she had ever dared be before. She was usually extremely careful about staying out of reach, but this was a special occasion. He could hardly spin around and grab at the air while he had company. Being this close to him felt so deliciously forbidden.

She leaned in until her face was mere inches from the shell of his ear. She caught a whiff of his skin and couldn't help acknowledging to herself that he smelled amazing. It was an aromatic mix of expensive aftershave, fire, motor oil and….She shook her head to clear it. This was no time to wax lyrical over the man, not when she could be pranking him.

Tony froze comically when he felt a puff of air against his right ear. Jumping slightly, he let out a startled yelp. Rhodey stared and asked sardonically, "Is there a problem?"

The engineer's eyes shifted around the room, relieved that everything had suddenly returned to its proper spot before Rhodey could turn around. "It's…ah…hemorrhoids. Really bad…er, big ones," he finished lamely.

His friend nodded in comprehension. "I hear you, man. Those hemorrhoids are the worst," he said gravely, rising from his seat. "Well, I'll head out. I just wanted to touch base with you before the Expo."

Tony walked him to the door, partly sad to see his friend go because it had been so long since anyone had paid him a social call, but mostly eager to shove him out the door so that he could check the feed from the stairwell. "Well, my little first officer and I are headed back to the lab. Don't be a stranger," he called, waving as the man replaced his cover on his head and marched back to his black, government-issued sedan.

As soon as Rhodey was safely gone, Tony called tauntingly, "What you did with the furniture…that was really something. You'll have to tell me how you did it once I catch you. In fact, you should probably get a list ready, because I'm going to want to know _everything_."

For a moment, he could have sworn that he heard low, tinkling laughter, but was maddeningly unable to pinpoint its distance or direction.

The game was fun, but he longed to meet the mind behind the gifts and wry, pithy little notes. As death crept up on him, he actively began to crave things that were real and tangible. He wanted to see what she was really like-listen to her voice, touch her flesh and feel the life coursing beneath it. He felt everything slipping further out of reach—his goals, his relationships—but he promised himself that he would have this one thing. He would _know _her before he died.

Because she mattered to him. Even though he didn't know what she was or where she had come from, she had seen something worthy in Tony Stark. She was a radiant, extraordinary being, and could do absolutely anything—work miracles, travel the world, _rule_ the world—but instead, she chose to bring him coffee every morning. To tell the truth, he couldn't remember anyone ever going to such pains over him—especially without being paid.

He didn't blame Rhodey and Pepper and his other (mostly marginal) friends for not reading his mind and supporting him through his secret crisis. He grasped that he was far from perfect at relationships himself. He was too flippant, too reluctant to bare his emotions. He was adept at projecting confidence, not confessing his vulnerabilities. He had taken both of his friends for granted too many times to count, and deeply regretted it now. But when the equations started multiplying and the designs tumbled over one another in his head, he struggled to remember to feed and bathe himself, much less to recall birthdays or anniversaries.

That evening, he looked at the footage from the stairwell. At the foot of the stairs, she activated the sensors, and for one brief, victorious moment, he saw a human figure silhouetted in reds, oranges and yellows. But then it vanished. He gaped. It had worked…and then it hadn't. He knew she hadn't simply teleported out because the pressure sensors had continued to be triggered in ascending order. It was almost as though the magic was _learning_. She hadn't been exposed to infrared scanners before, and so they hadn't been deemed a threat to her invisibility. But now they were.

He swore that he would either capture her or draw her out. He wanted to know her like she knew him, to hear her thoughts, discover what made her laugh, see the brightness of her eyes.

He still had lots of ideas, and felt fairly certain that the package waiting in his foyer was the sonar range finder (SRF) he had ordered. Perhaps it was time to grow a little more cunning. True, she had magic, while he had technology, but that didn't mean it was the _only _tool in his arsenal.

* * *

**S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters**

"Agent Romanoff, you have your assignment. And while you're at it, find out what Stark's doing with all of that equipment he's been ordering. Why does he need sonar, pressure alarms, motion sensors, and infrared? Something tells me he's working on another project, one that doesn't have a damn thing to do with clean energy," Nick Fury ordered, closing his phone and staring at one of the ubiquitous posters for the Stark Expo.

With a sigh, he wondered whether Tony Stark would ever stop being such a pain in his ass. Something told him that if the engineer irritated him now, he would be much, much worse as one of his employees.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Witchcraft and Trickery**

The past few weeks had been quiet, and Tony hadn't needed to make a single appearance as Iron Man, although he had made sure to take the Mark V out for a few test runs. He preferred to do this in the evenings, not only because the city lights shone gorgeously in the dark, but because he liked to show off a bit for his mystery guest. The inventor knew how impressive it looked when the armor slithered upwards to coat his body, as though the metal had a life of its own.

Pepper had finally started picking up his calls again; and although still a little distant and annoyed, she was steadily thawing. She wanted him to review applications and conduct the final interviews for a personal assistant. He had forgotten all about it, and asked if he could delay the task until after the Expo. That had not gone over particularly well. "Tony, you can't just put this off. Some of these candidates are highly qualified. They're anxious to become part of the team and start learning the job," she had scolded.

"Please, Pep. Just give me a week—week-and-a-half, tops. I still have tons to do to prepare for the Expo," he had wheedled, knowing that he would have to give in if she pressed, because he wanted so badly to make things right between them.

Luckily, Pepper had had enough on her plate without worrying about the vacant position, and had eventually caved to his pleas…although she had refused his dinner invitation, remarking sweetly that she couldn't possibly, now that she knew how busy he was. Hanging up the phone, he had sighed tiredly and wondered when conversations with Pepper had devolved into litanies of excuses. These days, their encounters all either seemed to end in him being totally routed, or Pyrrhic victories.

Tony had blamed the Expo for keeping him too busy to bother with interviewing prospective employees, which wasn't the real reason, of course; but it was the one he could admit. The truth was that he spent an indecent amount of time preparing to launch a full-scale assault against his invisible opponent. For the past three nights, he had pretended to go to bed early to throw her off his scent. After a little time passed, he would slip back down to the lab to work on installing his new equipment.

He had always slightly held himself in check, unable to shake the fear that he would offend her and either drive her off, or provoke her anger. But she hadn't left yet, not even after he had tried to drug and paralyze her. She had instead_ rewarded_ him. To Tony, that was as good as giving him _carte blanche_. Besides, he didn't think that anyone truly evil could have made a creature as amazing as his little Spock.

He had examined her infrared-highlighted body in great detail, pleased to have proof that his instincts had been spot-on. Not only did his visitor have a human shape, but a female one. She was on the small side, lightweight and slender. Intrigued by this veiled glimpse, he had redoubled his efforts to unmask her.

To the inventor's great delight, Rhodey had managed to procure a large quantity of KO-357, a military-grade knock-out gas. His price had been Tony's permission to let him stop by in a few days and try on the Mark-II. The colonel had been perplexed by how desperately the engineer had wanted the aerosol, because he had agreed without hesitation.

Rhodey had never really expected his friend to go along with his request—well, at least not sober, because it would require quite a leap of faith on Tony's part. He had no assurance that Rhodey wouldn't simply fly back to the air force base with his suit. The easy acceptance on the inventor's part was almost enough to rouse Rhodey's curiosity; but he had long since learned that when it came to Tony and his wild schemes, it was generally better not to ask.

The engineer spent long nights tearing up the floor in his lab and installing vibration-sensing floor tiles with pressure and electric field sensors. Not wanting to leave any possibility unexplored, he also added ultra-wideband radar, Doppler-shift sensors, and tomographic sensors around the perimeter of the lab. In a scientific frenzy, he set up laser scanners and range-finders, ultrasound motion sensors, humidity sensors, and chemosensors. He even added thermal imagers, although he didn't have much hope for success from that quarter, since the passive infrared detector had only worked for a moment before failing.

Out of fear that her strangely reactive magic would cause them all to fail at once, he bided his time, setting everything up meticulously, and wearing himself out in the process. He plotted to try a different scanner each day, in case they all proved ineffective against her after the first exposure. Finally, at four in the morning, Plan D (or, as Tony preferred to call it, Plan: 'Poisoning the Waterhole') was finally ready for field testing. Dragging himself off to bed, he wondered whether tomorrow would be the day that realized his hopes.

* * *

It wasn't. He had to vent the knock-out gas before entering the lab, and Spock didn't seem to understand the delay, trying and failing several times to lead Tony downstairs. The little dog would coaxingly walk a little ahead of him, turning and pouting whenever the inventor stopped following him. The pup adored the lab. It was an exciting place, and harbored many interesting sounds and scents.

Jarvis had reported that the sonar had detected a foreign presence in his basement, but that it had vanished almost as soon as it had appeared. Intrigued, Tony fought down his impatience to examine the results. After waiting an agonizing hour, he finally burst down the stairs, spotting evidence of her visit immediately. The coffee cups hadn't made it onto his work table, but lay in the middle of the floor with their contents spreading around them in a cooling puddle.

Because he had no real reason not to, Tony reached out blindly, hoping that his fingers would make contact with an invisible body. Bent over and swinging his arms ridiculously, he searched a wide area of the lab, but never felt anything but air. In perplexity, he approached one of his monitors to try to make sense of the situation. The sonar readout from an hour ago showed the imprecise image of a vertical blob for barely a second. This blob had almost instantly become horizontal, lying in the middle of the room for another moment, before simply vanishing. Stark leaned back, letting out a low whistle. The gas had done its job. She had collapsed. So how in the nine hells had she managed to teleport while unconscious? He was beginning to feel a bit like Wile E. Coyote.

That evening, he found a note on his whiteboard. "_You're not the only one that learns from your mistakes_," her message proclaimed impudently.

* * *

An extremely disgruntled Laurel regained consciousness that morning in the middle of her hotel room floor. Hauling herself to her feet, she glanced at the alarm clock and registered that the time was three hours later than it should be. The last thing she recalled was apparating into Tony's lab…._Oh_.

After he had tried to sedate her with the cookies, the witch had realized that incapacitating her for a short time would be his best bet for figuring out what she was. She had suspected that it was only a matter of time before he tried sleeping gas. Preparing for that eventuality, she had turned her signet ring into a Portkey designed to be triggered by an involuntary loss of consciousness. It had taken a little work, but she had managed to prevent it from reading ordinary sleep as a false positive. Laurel had set her hotel room as its current destination.

Wincing, she regretted not being more precise when it came to the landing. It would have been nice to end up on the bed rather than the floor. She felt a little irritated at Stark over her impromptu nap, but mostly amused.

For a moment, she felt tempted to play a prank on him as punishment for making her spend the majority of the morning face-down in her own drool and a carpet of questionable cleanliness. It occurred to her that turning his Iron Man suits pink for a few hours would be a suitable revenge, but she quickly nixed that idea, not wanting to abuse her power. He was a man that took tremendous pride in his own creations, and Laurel would not tamper with them. His robots and suits were off-limits. If a time came when one of his suits sustained damage, she knew she'd be tempted to mend it with a Reparo, but wouldn't dare, because it would be disrespectful, as if she was trivializing his achievements. Besides, if he didn't get to explore how his technology had failed, how would he improve?

She didn't return until that night, after cautiously applying a Bubble-Head Charm. Seeing Tony cheerily explaining something about power grids to an attentive Spock, she decided that the air was safe, and dropped the spell. She settled into her customary corner, putting off reading her rather dry book about magical protection charms. Instead, she toyed with the idea of winding up Tony with a conjured spider.

Almost immediately, the song that had been playing softly in the background changed, and a new one exploded out of the speakers in a gorgeous introductory guitar solo. Laurel froze at the words, and the wide, wicked grin that Tony sported. Apparently, the song was titled "Black Magic Woman." His eyes luckily roved past her, but were focused in her vicinity. A thrill traveled up her spine, and she wasn't sure whether it was fear or anticipation. He _knew_ she was here. Moreover, he had somehow discovered that she was a woman.

Tony's sensors had shown that the carbon dioxide was significantly higher than normal on the far side of the room. It was definitely his visitor, but just because he was aware of her presence didn't mean that he had the wherewithal to catch her. Tony felt like a wolf pacing impotently at the base of the tree that housed his quarry. He knew that he couldn't approach or she would disappear. It was an interesting dilemma. If conscious, she could teleport. If she lost consciousness, she could also teleport. In that moment, he knew that he wouldn't catch her using technology. He would have to resort to older methods, but there was nothing wrong with taunting her in the meantime.

Laurel never did concentrate on her book. She was far too busy nervously awaiting his next move. He knew she was there, so why didn't he_ do_ anything about it? Eventually, she realized that he didn't seem to have any immediate plans to capture her. Relaxing slightly over the next few days, she started to see the humor in the way he chose to welcome her. Whenever he sensed her presence, he had Jarvis fire up his 'magic' playlist. Every evening when she dropped in, Laurel was greeted by her own entrance music, whether it was "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," "Witchy Woman," "Strange Magic," "Oh Oh Oh, It's Magic," or another of his myriad choices. Stark never seemed to run out of titles. Spock usually sang along, throwing his head back and howling soulfully, which made the whole thing much funnier.

Tony always looked enormously entertained whenever one of his new sensors detected her and prompted Jarvis to cue one of the theme songs. Laurel adored seeing a look of pleasure on his face, because all too often, he seemed rather sad. She had begun to sense that something was badly wrong with him. He didn't look like he ever managed much sleep, exhibiting dark shadows under his haunted eyes. He seemed to be consuming even more of his energy drink, sometimes even forgoing coffee in its favor. She wondered whether he might be ill, but quickly discounted the theory. He still exercised and didn't seem to be losing any weight.

Save the past few nights, he had been retiring upstairs before it grew terribly late, although he had never appeared rested the following morning. She didn't realize that he had been returning downstairs to work on his traps during the nights in question. But he had since reverted to his usual behavior, occasionally remaining in the lab until three or four in the morning, and sometimes later. She supposed that he had nightmares. If he had been tortured, it was only natural. She even had them on occasion, although not nearly as many since she had become adept at Occlumency.

One night, when Laurel glanced up from her book, she discovered that he had passed out from exhaustion, his upper body sprawled all over his work table. He had face-planted on a pile of circuits, and she winced at the thought of the soreness he would be feeling when he rose in a few hours.

Instantly deciding that this was an unacceptable state of affairs, she cast a room-wide Silencing Charm to keep Jarvis and Spock from interfering and rousing the unconscious inventor. With her magic under careful control, Laurel levitated the engineer over to the extra-long leather couch at the far end of the room. She rarely sat on it when she visited the lab, because it was too far away from the scene of the action.

The witch quickly settled him, conjuring a pillow and maneuvering his body so that he landed horizontally, with the back of his dark head pressed against the cushion. Eying him critically, Laurel decided that it couldn't be comfortable for him to sleep in his jeans, and so she conjured pajamas, lightweight and sinfully soft, and performed a quick Switching Spell. She used cleaning and folding charms on his clothes and left them in a neat pile on the coffee table.

Still hovering, but not daring to get too close, the witch let her gaze settle on his face. His skin appeared almost gray under his tan, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes seemed slightly more pronounced. His spirit was so dynamic that these little signs of mortality were almost unnoticeable when he was awake; however, they revealed themselves when his face was slack in sleep, and she found them infinitely disturbing. They served as more evidence that time was flowing swiftly around her, while she was rooted in the middle of the stream-a frozen, helpless spectator. She cringed at the thought of leaving him behind. He was already no longer a young man; and he burned so brightly. He would wear himself out.

His aging seemed unnatural to her. Tony was a force of nature, too spirited and vital to decline or…die. In some ways, he struck her as the most mortal person she had ever met, so full of passion and vitality. But he was also timeless. Tony Stark was _necessary_. Nothing in this world gleamed as brilliantly or held such potential. Frowning, Laurel suddenly recalled a famous quote. "_Graveyards are full of indispensable men_." She shuddered, and tried her best to put it out of her mind.

He still needed covers, and before she quite realized what she was doing, she had summoned her own blanket from her bottomless bag and gently draped it over his form. She could have conjured a coverlet, but that wouldn't have been nearly as fitting…or fulfilling. She had found this particular magical article in the Black vault, and had immediately taken it home with her. It had been incredibly valuable even among wizards, but would be unique and absolutely priceless in this new magicless world.

A master enchanter had woven it of the softest acromantula silk, light and warm and wondrously magical; and stitched unicorn hair into runes around the edges for health, comfort, and sweet dreams. The large, lush coverlet appeared to be made of silver water etched with mother-of-pearl lettering. It had been spun for wizards, so its magic should be especially efficacious on a muggle. It had all the usual spells, and many extras, including Self-Repairing, Self-Cleaning, Stain-Repelling, and Fire-Proof Charms (which would be a necessity if it remained in the lab). Even though it was a precious object, parting with it to Tony gave her no pain.

Stark gave a soft sigh in his sleep, and she could see some of the tension bleed out of his face and shoulders. The exhausted inventor seemed to melt into the sofa, and Laurel mentally berated herself for not taking better care of him. He was running himself into the ground in his obsessive efforts to catch her. She had begun to feel very proprietary towards the eccentric engineer. She didn't know whether it was her 'saving people thing' rearing its head again or something else. But with absolute conviction, she felt that he was _hers_ to care for, hers to protect. The witch had long passed the point where she was simply watching him, and was now watching over him.

Spock had been standing stiff-legged on his stool, surveying the proceedings with a wary eye. Summoning the little creature, she placed it on the couch at Tony's feet, but it was having none of that, and immediately clambered over his body, making Laurel wince lest it should wake him. Spock perched on the arm of the sofa, after walking in a circle a few times and finally settling down. With its shrewd, gem-bright gaze, the dog stared towards her invisible form with impressive precision.

She hadn't noticed its eyes before, because she had been in a bit of hurry when she'd transfigured it, and hadn't dared get close since. But they were the exact color of her own irises. Tilting her head in thought, Laurel wondered just how many traces of her magic had remained in this creature. She hadn't really been expecting its fur to be green either, although such a thing wasn't unheard of. Seeing that there was nothing left for her to do, she cast one last, lingering look at the adorable pair and reluctantly disapparated.

* * *

Tony woke to the bracing smell of coffee after the best sleep he'd had since he could remember. No dreams had troubled him, and he felt deliciously comfortable. It took him a few moments to get his bearings; and he felt shocked when he realized that he was on the couch in his lab. He had slept on it several times before….Or to be accurate, he had stumbled over and collapsed on it from exhaustion, before rising from a power nap and continuing whatever project he had been working on. But he had never felt like _this_ after waking up on it before. His sofa wasn't exactly an_ unpleasant _place to sleep, but he had never risen afterwards feeling like he had just spent the night in a five-star hotel either. He usually bolted out of bed, but felt inclined to linger on the couch this morning, savoring the refreshed, pampered, cherished feelings….Cherished? Where had _that_ thought come from?

Rolling into a sitting position, he pondered how he had managed to get over to the couch. He didn't _remember_ deciding to go to sleep. Spock glanced up at him groggily from his aerie on the back of the sofa, which he had inexplicably decided to scale in the night, and slowly wagged his tails. Tony eyed the dog in bemusement, running a careful hand along its soft back.

Now all he had to do was change out of his pajamas and get to work. Slowly, his mind started to catch up to his observations, and the inventor let out an exclamation of surprise. He didn't _wear_ pajamas. He didn't even own any.

"Jarvis!" he called hoarsely. "What happened to me last night?"

His AI dutifully narrated the events of the night before, playing the footage in question on the large television screen on the wall. Gaping as he saw himself float through the air, the engineer puzzled over these strange circumstances. Reaching out, he lifted his neatly folded shirt and noticed that the metallic dust that had saturated it had vanished. Gingerly, he held the fabric to his nose and inhaled. Then he breathed it in again, relishing the cool, crisp cleanliness of it.

Placing it back down on top of his jeans, he examined the pillow with clever fingers, and eventually decided that there was nothing unusual about it, save its origin. At long last, his gaze fell on the blanket, and he let out a soft gasp of awe. It practically thrummed with spells and sorcery. The fabric flowed through his fingers, and he traced the delicate runes reverently. "It's so _beautiful_," he murmured. "Jarvis, what language is this? Can you translate it?"

"The runes appear to be Elder Futhark, sir, a Germanic alphabet that dates from the second century A.D. I will run them through my databases," Jarvis asserted placidly.

In a few minutes, the AI faithfully delivered his report, telling an increasingly wonder-struck Tony that they appeared to be blessings (or more likely spells) for comfort, peace, protection, and good health. The engineer wondered if the blanket was a gift or whether she would reclaim it. Part of him longed to understand the strangely strong and temperature-regulating material, but he didn't dare deconstruct it. As a master craftsman himself, he knew that he was looking at an intricate piece of art.

In his uncertainty, he left it neatly folded on one end of the couch. But when it remained where he had left it the following morning, he accepted the fact that it was a gift—after Spock, the best gift he had ever received. From then on, he never went to sleep without it, and his rest was peaceful. The only time he had a nightmare in the following days, he realized that he had inadvertently kicked off the blanket in the night. Even his health seemed to take a slight upswing.

The remaining days before the Stark Expo were filled with modifications to his suits. His equipment detected and lost Laurel each night, and he realized that he was running out of gadgets. Ruefully, he admitted to himself that he was effectively inoculating her against tracking technology with each new thing he tried. A device might detect her once; but that was almost a guarantee that it would never find her again.

The knowledge that she was so close, but that he couldn't see or hear her taunted him relentlessly. He spoke to her all the time, and sometimes she surprised him with a spontaneous display of magic. Occasionally she would levitate a tool over to him, and once she created a hovering orb of light to help him see.

Tony still looked exhausted, which irked Laurel, because the blanket would ensure sweet sleep if he would _actually go to bed_. He was an insomniac, and she had observed him long enough to know the difference between a manic flow of genius that ought not to be interrupted and the random tinkering that he busied himself with, attempting to stave off the inevitable moment when he had to rest. She wondered why he seemed so averse to sleep, not understanding that he wanted to be as productive as possible in the short time he had remaining.

Some nights, once it hit about four in the morning and she could see no sign of him stopping, she would hit him with a mild Sleeping Charm before levitating him over to the couch, switching him into pajamas, and tucking him in. She knew that he was aware of what she was doing, but never complained or mentioned it the next day. Laurel never reclaimed her blanket. She felt that if she could make his life better, even in a small way, that the opportunity ought to be seized and celebrated.

Laurel had transfigured the puppy on a whim, but it had proven one of her better ideas. The clever little animal could draw a smile out of Stark when nothing else seemed to work, and it made something in her chest tighten every time she saw him happy.

One night, as the inventor altered the headset display in one of his suits, he related conversationally, "Spock's a great dog…er, _crup_. Did you know that I have to tell him to 'play dumb' when he's around people? That's one of his actual commands.

"Most nights before we go to bed, I read him a story on my pad about dogs that did great deeds. You know…to set a good example for him. I tried some easy stuff at first, like _Clifford the Big Read Dog _and _The Poky Little Puppy_, but he was bored out of his skull. So we've moved on to _The Call of the Wild_,_ The Adventures of TinTin,_ and _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. I had to censor the ending for him in that one, so _ix-nay_ on the dog getting _illed-kay_….Last night we read a short story about the village cur that saved Jim Corbett from getting killed by a man-eating leopard. Spacely Sprocket here really liked that one. It was suspenseful."

In her corner, out of sight, Laurel grinned in amused affection.

"Some days he gets bored, and I'll put in a movie for him," Tony continued, never taking his eyes off the tiny screw he was tightening. "He really likes Disney movies, _Lassie_, and that dog from _The Thin Man_. Once I played _Cujo_ just to mix it up a little, but I think he might have been a bit young for it. It got him a little keyed up, and he kept following me into the bathroom….Guess dog serial killers aren't really his cup of tea."

The witch had begun to grow complacent, absorbing his words and offering none of her own, when he startled her by suddenly looking up, tossing down his screwdriver and addressing her brightly. "Hey, let's play a game. It must grow rather dull for you to listen to my babbling all the time. So how about for every question of mine that you answer, I'll answer one for you?" Tony proposed cavalierly, hardly thinking she would respond.

He nearly fell off his metal stool when words instantly appeared on his large whiteboard. "_Very well. You go first_," was the ready answer.

"Wow. Er…I wasn't really expecting a response. But this is too fantastic," he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together.

"I'll start with the easy stuff," he said slyly. "What's your name?"

"_I should have known you wouldn't be able to resist the dangerous questions. And _you_ should have known I wouldn't answer. Try another_," Laurel retorted, wondering if he would ask for her social security number next.

Undeterred by her rebuttal, he immediately moved on to his next query. "What are you? Are you human?" he asked curiously.

No words appeared for several moments, but when they finally did, Tony nearly choked. "_I was born human. But I do not know what I am now….I think I _may _have accidentally made myself immortal_," Laurel answered.

Bursting with questions, Tony impatiently waited to see what she would ask. "_Why haven't you told anyone about me…or tried to get me to leave?_" she inquired.

Tony hadn't expected soul-searching questions. He had been interviewed hundreds of times over the years, and besides his sex life, people had only wanted to know about the things he had made, not what he felt or thought (well, unless they were trying to coax him into proposing marriage or issuing inflammatory political statements). He had assumed she would ask about the arc reactor or his suits. "You know why," he answered at last, in a low voice.

"_Tell me_," she urged.

"I'm not sure what you want to hear. That I'm stubborn? Reckless? Too curious? …You must know that you're every scientist's wet dream," he deflected.

Laurel winced at his final words. She wasn't sure what she had wanted him to say, but it hadn't been that. Although, what had she been expecting—that he wanted her to stick around because of her scintillating personality? Stark was only intrigued by her magic of course, and she was an utter fool for hoping otherwise. It was _always_ about her magic. Power was all she had ever had to offer.

Unable to see the series of emotions passing over her face, Tony endeavored to lighten the conversation, and asked mischievously, "So, do you watch me while I'm in the bathroom?"

"_I'm a stalker, not a voyeur_," she snapped back, the haughty tone of her writing making him grin.

"That wasn't a 'no'," he smirked wickedly.

"_NO!_" the words nearly took up the whole board.

"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much'," he teased, before asking leadingly, "So…can you do _anything_?"

There was a pause, and then the words appeared, "_Ferreting out my weaknesses, Mr. Stark, or do you have something specific in mind that you'd like to see?_"

"Oh, I think we're far beyond this 'Mr. Stark' business. All my other imaginary friends call me Tony," he replied airily.

With a glimmer of excitement in his astute brown eyes, the inventor added, "And I didn't know that demonstrations were in the cards."

"_We'll have to go elsewhere. That much magic would prove extremely harmful to your electronics_," she told him.

Thinking for a few moments, he suggested finally, "How about the roof? …Although we'd be awfully exposed up there."

"_I can protect us from prying eyes_," the words flew onto the board, barely legible. "_I will meet you on the roof…if you will promise not to record what happens up there_."

Chagrined, he dropped the thermographic camera and spectroscope he had been piling into his arms. Reluctantly, he allowed Spock to follow him, although it made him nervous to have the little guy so high up. After climbing through the service door and maneuvering around the solar panels, he finally made it outside to the vast, flat expanse of tiles that was directly above his living room. Spotting glittering ruby words hanging in the air like stationary fireworks, he came to a halt. "_Any requests?_" they read, teasing him with limitless possibilities.

Suddenly, Tony felt anxious. He wished he had spent a little more time asking her about herself before jumping straight into the magic. He still knew almost nothing about her…and how on earth does one 'accidentally' make oneself immortal?

"I have to ask—and don't get offended—but you're not one of those bad fairies, are you?" the billionaire asked rather nervously. "You know, the kind that gets amusement out of twisting people's wishes around on them? For instance, if I asked you to show me how it feels to be invisible, you wouldn't turn me into a poor hobo, would you?"

Laurel nearly laughed aloud. "_Well, I wouldn't _now_. It would hardly be any fun, now that you're onto me_," she replied sardonically.

Their original game of an answer for an answer had been long forgotten, which Laurel didn't exactly mind. She knew that she had an unfair advantage after observing him for so long, even in his unguarded moments. He was also such a public figure that she could find out most facts she wanted to know just by reading up on him online. His educational history, romantic conquests, scandals, friendships and greatest technological achievements were splattered all over the internet. It would be easy for people to presume they knew Tony because so much of him had been bared to their scrutiny.

Laurel didn't like that so much information about him was floating around. Knowledge was power, and that much personal data allowed one's enemies to pick and choose their weapons. It was vulnerability, an emotional hemorrhage. Laurel was a great believer in strength through secrecy…although she sheepishly admitted that she was in the process of blowing _that _philosophy out of the water this very moment.

Smiling at her retort, Tony began firing off questions, "This magic that you use—is it like the Force in _Star Wars_? Are you born with it? Did you have to study it?"

Basking in his enthusiastic attention, the witch confessed, "_I was born with it, but needed training to reach my full potential…and it is a bit like the Force._"

"Can you do the Jedi mind trick? Or choke people like Darth Vader?" he burst out inquisitively.

"_I've never tried to choke anyone, but surely it can't be that hard_," the witch mused, carefully avoiding the first part of his question. She didn't think that even the most open-minded muggle would be okay with Obliviation, Legilimency, and the Imperius Curse.

He noticed that she skirted his query about the Jedi mind trick, and wasn't _that _telling. "I always meant to look into making a light saber," the inventor remarked, uttering the non sequitur with an endearing quirk of his lips.

Continuing his inquisition, Tony asked, "So, what are your limitations? Are you like the genie in Aladdin?"

"_…I'm not familiar with this genie_," she returned, a little embarrassed of her ignorance.

"Well, he promised to grant three wishes, but with a caveat. He said he couldn't raise people from the dead, make people fall in love, or kill anyone. Is it similar with you?" he inquired, awaiting her answer with bright, perceptive eyes.

"_Oh…_" Laurel reflected for a few moments before responding, "_No, I can do all those things._"

Stark gaped, and an awkward silence fell. It had been so long since Laurel had had a conversation with _anyone_, especially someone so enthralled by her abilities, that she had begun to censor herself less and less.

Momentarily forgetting that her audience was a muggle to whom this was all extremely unfamiliar, she examined the question academically. The writing continued, "_I can reanimate corpses, but they don't have their minds or souls. They're murderous, mindless beings_."

"I see….You know, I'm really starting to regret all the times I made fun of those people preparing for a zombie apocalypse," he quipped, shifting a bit uncomfortably.

"_Mr. Stark—_Tony_—I give you my word that there will be no 'zombie apocalypse'. I would never dabble in such filthy magic. There are always better options….But I suppose I haven't completely answered your question. I can also call up the souls of the dead, and they can speak with the living, but don't wish to linger. They're insubstantial shades_," she finished.

"Amazing," he whispered.

Just to cover his bases, he half-joked, "You don't have to perform a ritual or sacrifice a virgin or anything?"

Laurel laughed. "_No. I call (_extremely_ infrequently) and they come…but that's rather a long story, and one for another time._"

Addressing his previous question, she continued, "_As far as making people fall in love, there are several love spells and potions. They can't create true love, but mimic it with a powerful infatuation. Most wear off in time, but Amortentia, the most potent love potion, is permanent without an antidote. I hate compulsion magic and love potions are the vilest of the lot…Your virtue is quite safe," she relayed drily._

"_And as for killing, well, that genie of yours was a liar," Laurel carried on vehemently. "Few things are as easy as killing—from a magical standpoint, not a moral one, of course. Maybe he meant that he 'wouldn't' rather than 'couldn't', because 'couldn't' makes no sense. He wouldn't have even needed to use the Killing Curse. Honestly, how hard would it be to levitate a little poison into someone's food? Or turn their heart into a sponge? Or transfigure them into a twig and burn it? Or maybe just snap the twig…_" Laurel mused, getting lost in thought.

"I think I get the idea," the inventor replied with a slow grin, immensely entertained by her rabbit trail.

Coming back to herself, the young witch wrote quickly, chagrin practically dripping from every word, "_I only meant hypothetically, of course…although I shouldn't be talking about these things at all. When I start turning over a question, I forget about little things like decency, and, you know, inducing nausea and freaking people out….I apologize. You probably think I'm some sort of terrible, bloodthirsty creature_."

Grinning in bemusement, Tony declared avidly, "Far from it. I'm fascinated, actually. It's refreshing to ask a question and get an uncensored answer...and to meet someone else that talks about inappropriately macabre subjects as often as I do."

She didn't quite know what to make of this reply. Back at Hogwarts, Hermione had found her lack of decorum appalling, even though Laurel hadn't really understood why, since she had only allowed her morbid speculations to run wild when she had been secluded with her friends. It wasn't as though she had gone up to Molly Weasley and asked her whether she thought Voldemort had a venom sac and forked tongue (Laurel had forced herself to sit on that question for years and _still_ didn't know the answer to it.). But Ron and Hermione had informed her that certain forms of curiosity were more than a bit not good. Tony was the first person she had met that seemed to think otherwise.

Tony couldn't see Laurel flush, but appreciated her awkward apology as evidence of her humanity. Apparently even all-powerful witch queens get flustered. Interesting. He noted the long pause before she wrote back. "_What would you like to see?_" she inquired, changing the subject.

He opened his mouth to reply, when he realized that he didn't exactly know. She could do _anything_, and so he finally shrugged and dared, "_Dazzle_ me."

Grinning in anticipation, she proceeded to do exactly that. Laurel started small, and conjured a lily. She replicated it until the roof looked like one flowery field. Uncomfortable and unable to see over the flowers, Spock pawed at Tony until the inventor lifted him into his arms, brushing his fingers across a few petals in the process, just to see if they were real. Suddenly, the flowers disappeared and a small green viper took their place. It hovered in the air, alive and hissing, and then it straightened and became a bright, enchanted sword, with emeralds glittering in the hilt. She then turned it into different animals, each larger and more dangerous than the one before.

She had cast all manner of protective spells earlier, and thankfully didn't have to worry about the roof caving in when she turned her hippogriff into a manticore, and then into a dragon. She had inherited her father's prodigious talent in transfiguration, and found the branch of magic eminently suited for presentation.

Her magic had grown so powerful after she had claimed the Elder Wand that spells that gave even the strongest trouble came fairly easily to her. Banishing the dragon (identical to the one she had crafted to earn her transfiguration mastery) with a casual gesture, she cast Flippendo Tria, causing a small tornado to zoom around, awing her audience. After that, she made a wall of water and filled it with fish. Vanishing the fish, she froze the water, and then cast Bombarda, exploding ice everywhere, but turning the shrapnel to harmless, multi-colored bubbles the moment of the blast.

Tony had yet to pick his jaw up off the ground. He reached out hesitantly when her Patronus, a small but dazzlingly bright raven, circled gracefully around him, wrapping him in a cocoon of love and serenity. It alighted on his shoulder for a few golden moments before dissipating. Spock struggled fruitlessly to reach it, wagging furiously. Laurel wanted to do something really impressive. The dragon had been great, but she had one last visual trick still up her sleeve.

Starting with a Lumos Sol, she then passed seamlessly to a Firewhip, which was awe-inspiring enough on its own. But goaded to ever greater heights by Tony's rapt expression, Laurel decided to give him something he would really remember, and so she drew forth Fiendfyre. She no longer feared the wild, unnatural flames because she had learned to control them. The witch kept the blaze surrounded by a transparent shield that prevented the heat from escaping, but let her fire serpent rear its head many stories high, in all its alarming glory.

Delighting in the rage and ferocity of the firestorm, Laurel glanced at Tony to see his reaction. Noticing that Spock was yammering loudly and trying to burrow into the inventor's shirt, she banished the conflagration immediately. The sudden darkness and the quiet whimpering of the dog proved almost shocking, now that the roar of the inferno had died away. Licking his lips, the inventor finally found his words. "That was remarkable. Completely, utterly terrifying, of course, but quite something," he murmured, stroking a trembling Spock.

Casting a quick Cheering Charm at the pup, which quickly regained its equanimity and seemed embarrassed by its earlier panic attack, Laurel made the words float in the air again, only this time they were blue. "_Magic is a vast and varied field. There are spells, hexes and curses beyond number, besides potions, protective magic, enchanting, ritual and runic magics. Many things would not make good demonstration material. For instance, I could brew a potion to regrow bones or replenish blood, but it wouldn't make for a very impressive spectator sport_," she opined.

"Oh, I doubt that," he breathed. "I'd love to see it."

"_You're too curious for your own good_," she answered fondly.

"It's one of my greatest faults. That and the fact that I'm excessively smart, rich and attractive—if we're supposed to be striving for the 'golden mean'...But nobody's perfect," Tony sassed, his smirk turning to a yelp as a pair of antlers suddenly sprouted on the top of his head.

Laurel almost immediately vanished them, causing the engineer to huff and retort, "Hey, not cool! Don't get any ideas, _Circe_. I was born handsome and human and I'd like to remain that way."

"_Oh, my apologies! I thought I was still supposed to be demonstrating my skills_," she rejoined silkily.

Tony spent the next few seconds pouting at her palpable smugness, before he forgot his indignation at the prospect of getting the answer to a question that had been driving him crazy for weeks. "Okay, spill….the drinks. How did you make them stay hot?" he demanded, and she took this for the peace offering it was and answered to the best of her ability, which came nowhere near to satisfying his exacting scientific curiosity.

"_I really don't know what to tell you_," Laurel admitted finally. "_Magic sometimes breaks the laws of nature. And I wish I could give you a more comprehensive answer, but I haven't had a science class since I was ten-years-old, when I was sent off to study magic exclusively_."

"So there are more people that can do the things you can do?" he inquired, voicing a concern that had been bugging him since her note about the crup, where she had mentioned other 'magicals' cutting off the second tail so that the animal could better 'blend in'. Blend in with normal humans?

Laurel had known this question would arise sooner or later, but struggled with how much to tell him. She was already a little angry at herself for abandoning all common sense and showing off—exposing so many of her secrets. It had been completely foolhardy, but when he had looked up with a taunting gleam in his clever dark eyes and murmured, '_Dazzle me_,' in that audacious way of his, she had been powerless to resist the impulse to do exactly that. His unparalleled charisma made others want to please him, and the young witch was far from immune.

Deciding to be fairly straightforward, Laurel finally answered, "_I came here from another dimension. Where I lived, there were many people with magic. I traveled to your world through a powerful ancient artifact called the Veil of Death. There won't be any more visitors from that alternate universe because the Veil is designed for killing, not transportation. I'm something of a special case because of the incident I mentioned earlier, where I think I may have become immortal….It couldn't kill me, so it spat me out here."_

"An alternate reality? So they _do_ exist….This is incredible. Every physicist I know would give anything to hear this. Do you have a counterpart in this world? Have you come across other people here with magical powers?" he probed, nearly bouncing with excitement at learning so much in such a short time.

"_No. This world is different from the other. The disparities between them aren't obvious at first glance; but the most glaring discrepancy is that there's no magic here. I've searched everywhere. I have sensors that would alert me to even the weakest magic, but in all the months that I've been here, I've always been the only one of my kind_," Laurel told him, finding it easier to write the replies than it would be to speak them.

The inventor avidly scanned the words as they lingered briefly in the air. He had so many questions that he didn't know where to begin, but felt a sharp stab of pity for this invisible woman, who was so very alone in her new reality. Sensing her melancholy, he asked a question that he didn't really expect her to answer, and sure enough, she evaded. "What are you doing here?" he asked incredulously. "I mean _here_…with me. You have such an extraordinary gift. No one can do the things you do, so why on earth are you bothering with _me_?"

Laurel didn't quite know what to say. He couldn't possibly want validation, could he? A few weeks ago, if anyone had asked, she would have sworn that no one had healthier self-esteem than Tony Stark, but that was before she had seen how much time he spent alone, and how misjudged he was by the people closest to him. At long last, she answered, "_I'll quote you from earlier, when you wouldn't answer why you never tried to get me to leave: '_You know why'_….But what do you suggest? What would you do in my place?" _

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know, but anything's a better use of your time than delivering breakfast to me. There's a whole world out there that could use your help. To my endless disappointment, I'm just not that important in the scheme of things," Tony confessed, in a rare moment of self-deprecating humor.

Before she could censor her thoughts, she wrote, "_Maybe I disagree._"

A long pause followed, but it was different than the others had been. The air felt _charged_ somehow. Tony realized with utter astonishment that his ears had heated in a blush. Clearing his throat, he tried not to think about how much was riding on the answer to his next query. "Well, can you heal people with magic?" he inquired delicately.

"_A little. It's a field I've never studied, but I suppose I ought to learn_," she answered, tilting her head in thought.

It was actually a very good idea. She knew how to cast a basic diagnostic spell and clean and heal wounds (basic field medicine), but surely magical remedies existed for many of the illnesses and injuries that still plagued muggles. Starting tomorrow, she would begin her research.

"Or you could be a superhero," Tony continued blithely, trying not to choke on his disappointment that she lacked knowledge of the one area he needed.

Honestly, he was surprised that she had given his flippant suggestion such consideration. "It's not a bad gig," he added. "We could come up with a kick-ass secret identity for you. You know, a better one that the 'Coffee Bandit'."

"_No one calls me that_," she objected amusedly.

"Actually, Jarvis and I—well _mostly_ Jarvis—and only on _very_ rare occasions," he began, but Laurel didn't hear the rest.

Someone had just tripped the perimeter ward she had cast before demonstrating her magic to Tony. "_You have company_," she told him, relishing his sigh of annoyance at having to leave off their conversation.

"Will you talk to me again?" he asked, suddenly looking vulnerable.

"_Of course I will. Don't be dull….Now run along and don't keep Colonel Rhodes waiting_," she answered imperiously, the words fizzling out in a fiery rain of sparkles.

"_Minx_," he muttered, and his cheeks hurt from grinning as he made his way downstairs.

* * *

No doubt Rhodey was here to try out the Iron Man suit. He hadn't expected him this late, but his friend knew that he would still be awake. As Tony and Spock reentered the main floor, Rhodey grinned at him boyishly from the top of the stairs leading to the lab. He was wearing civilian clothes, a maroon t-shirt and jeans with a black leather jacket. "Where have you been? I looked all over for you, but Jarvis wouldn't tell me where you'd gone," he said accusatorily, but was obviously too excited about the flying suit to be very bent out of shape about his wait.

"This little green-blooded hobgoblin and I were up on the roof making some modifications to the solar panels," Tony declared breezily, passing him on the stairs and beckoning him to follow.

"How is little Hulk Jr.?" Rhodey asked when they finally reached the Iron Man displays.

He was surprised to hear a low growl in response to his query. The pilot glanced down at his feet and saw the dog pointedly turn its back toward him. The puppy's attitude was as magisterial as a pharaoh's. Tony grinned madly and responded, "Sorry, buddy. He doesn't like it when anybody but me takes liberties with his name. He thinks you're being _overly familiar_."

A moment of silence passed and then the other replied flatly, "You're not serious."

"Yep, and so is he…although you'd better not call him that either," Tony quipped, causing his friend to roll his eyes.

Tony was sometimes a little much to take, but at least his brand of crazy was always fun.

* * *

Rhodey didn't fly off in his suit. Tony had been more than concerned about the possibility. If he flew it back to the base, the military scientists would reverse engineer the hell out of it. The whole reason he had stopped manufacturing weapons in the first place had been because he couldn't trust others to be responsible for his extremely lethal inventions. If anyone else had access to the technology, then he no longer had control over its dispersal and use.

The Stark Expo was coming up in three days, and Tony stayed incredibly busy, since he had put off talking with the event managers and stage directors until the last possible moment. To his dismay, he was often out late in the evenings, and lacked the opportunity for more conversations with the incredible magical being that had warmed to him.

But she had been busy as well, and each morning by his coffee, he began finding newspaper clippings. Initially, he received two articles. The first was a piece about missing persons. Apparently, two violent murderers, who were about to return to prison in California for violating their parole, had mysteriously vanished. The second clipping talked about two infants, who had been found in front of a police station in Oklahoma, and were to be put up for adoption. Tony didn't have to be a genius to do the math. A sticky note with her familiar scrawl asked, "_Did you mean I should do something like this?_"

The next day, Laurel went to a hospital Polyjuiced and disguised as a nurse. With several jars of Burn-healing Paste that she had brewed the day before, she headed for the burn ward. The next article she delivered to him bore the caption, "Miraculous Healings at St. Anthony's Hospital: Disfigured Burn Victims Restored to Health." She had chosen the hospital specifically for its name. In a way, her good deed was a gift to him. She supposed that made her a very bad person.

Tony's hands shook as he read the clipping. He didn't mistake her gesture for the offering it was. This time her note read, "_Or like this?_"

When he put it down and it accidentally fluttered over, he saw that she had written on the back in small letters, "_For you_."

He smiled the rest of the day. Even Pepper warmed to his good mood, and things were sunnier between them than they had been in months.

* * *

When the Stark Expo finally arrived in New York City, Laurel found herself inexorably headed for the giant crystal dome on opening night. Her magic helped her force a path to the front of the crowd. Iron Man and the dancing girls in red and gold put on quite the performance, and the noise from the screaming hordes was deafening. When Tony removed his suit and walked about the stage as himself, he peered out into the crowd. Laurel saw his eyes pass right over her without a trace of recognition. He had never seen her before, and couldn't be expected to identify her, but it still made her feel cold inside. Being overlooked by him was a far more awful sensation than she had expected. She was beginning to feel that it was worse than the alternative.

The question she should have been asking all along when it came to risking exposure was, "Is it worth it?" Or even more to the point, although she flinched away from its implications, was the question, "Is _he_ worth it?"

* * *

That evening Tony didn't return to his New York property or his Malibu lab. Worried when she didn't detect him the next morning with a Homenum Revelio, Laurel considered using the Point Me spell, but opted not to, deciding that he had probably stayed out celebrating. It wasn't until she read the paper the following day (where he had _two_ front page headlines) that she realized he had appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

She grinned as she scanned the article. Apparently Tony's enemies had fled before his lethal combination of showmanship and competence. This Senator Stern was the man he had mentioned before, when she had first seen Iron Man on television. Judging from his picture, he looked like a rather sour fellow. It seemed that Stark's other antagonist, the incompetent Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries, was in danger of losing his contract with the military after managing to discredit himself instead of Tony. Laurel would bear the two in mind as possible targets for future pranking.

* * *

Tony arrived back home that evening, and spent a little time playing with Spock before Pepper's arrival. The puppy loved to be chased, and especially enjoyed luring Tony outdoors. It had a preternatural ability for getting through any door it wanted, and inevitably coaxed its master to the pool area, where it could jump in and swim away whenever Tony came too close. The inventor always gave the dog a sporting chance to get to the other side before resuming his pursuit.

After a few hours of this, they came back inside and Tony took a quick shower. He waited for Pepper in the living room, the place in the house she was least likely to spot anything that might offend her. She had arranged to drop off the personal assistant applications, which she had helpfully narrowed down to the final five candidates. He planned to use the opportunity of her visit to appoint her CEO. He had already settled everything with his lawyers, and had the champagne bucket ready.

It bothered him that he was relinquishing control over Stark Industries, because he and Pepper had many differences of opinion. But if he didn't declare his successor before he died, the board would nominate one of their number—probably either the one that had kissed the most ass, or one that all the others envied least (most likely because of a total lack of leadership skills, backbone, imagination, and ability in general). Pepper was devoted to the company, and ran the operations on a day-to-day basis anyway. She had a gift for diplomacy, but wouldn't back down if she felt she was in the right. Even the politicians loved her, because Pepper never lost her cool, even when dealing with the most pig-headed bureaucrats. Only Tony seemed to drive her to the end of her patience.

She arrived a little after eight-thirty, and Jarvis allowed her entry. In a smart, periwinkle dress with a square neckline, and the opal teardrop Tony had paid for on her last birthday dangling from her long, pale throat, she was a vision of beauty and simplicity.

He greeted her with a light kiss on the cheek, and then she happened to glance down and notice Spock. "Oh no, Tony. You didn't!" she exclaimed, completely scandalized.

"Why not, Pep? You're always telling me to go green," he smirked, and tried not to feel embarrassed over how many days he had been waiting to use that line on her.

The redhead frowned and began to gather a head of steam. "This is not what I meant, Tony!" she rejoined forcefully. "You went out and bought some sort of demented…_designer dog_, when there are millions of people looking to you to set an example. You should have adopted a dog from a shelter…although you really don't need to have a pet in the first place. You can't even take care of yourself, much less an animal!"

Irritated at being treated like a child, the inventor retorted stiffly, "I've had to get very good at taking care of myself since you've been incommunicado."

"Oh, Tony," she sighed. "We_ just_ talked about responsibility in our last conversation. I thought you might have actually listened to me, but then you go and do something like this and prove that I'm absolutely irrelevant to you."

"That's not true! Besides, I didn't do it to spite you. What's the big deal? Do you hate dogs? …Would it be different if he only had one tail? Is it because he's _green_?" he goaded, only half-seriously.

"You know I don't hate dogs…not even weird ones. And his deformity is not the issue….But Tony, it's hard for me not to think that this is about me when you _know _I'm allergic to dogs," she accused, crossing her slim arms and turning slightly away from him.

He blinked. "Really? I thought you were allergic to strawberries," the inventor mused.

"That's because you never _listen_," she returned with a glare.

Brightening, Tony remembered a bit of information that ought to end the argument. "But it's a non-issue because he's hypoallergenic," he replied proudly.

She threw her arms in the air in a rare show of exasperation. Part of Tony was proud that he could still manage to get a reaction out of her after having been ignored for so long. He heard Spock give a low, adorable growl, and scolded softly, "Not helping, little buddy."

Clearing his throat, he decided that he might as well try to make peace. "I'm sorry, Pep," he murmured humbly. "I should have cleared it with you first, but I just fell in love with the little guy."

He could see her melt a little, so he pressed his advantage. "So, what do you think of the applicants?" he inquired, gesturing for her to precede him to the sofa.

She took the armchair. _Ouch_. Warming to the topic, she waxed eloquent about the candidates, but it was obvious that one's qualifications blew the others' out of the water. "Natalie Rushman is my top pick. She has a brilliant portfolio….The only problem is that she's an incredibly beautiful woman," Pepper finished.

"And that's a problem, why?" he asked, with a crooked grin.

Rolling her eyes, his Girl Friday said plainly, "We don't need a sexual harassment lawsuit on our hands."

"You wound me, Pepper. I would never sleep with my personal assistant. It's the ultimate cliché," he replied defensively.

"You've been trying to sleep with me for months," Pepper retorted, completely deadpan.

He winced. "You know that you've always been more to me than that. You and Rhodey are the best friends I've got. You've saved my life. Don't think that I don't know your value," Tony said earnestly, not being able to stand the thought that he would die without his friends knowing how much they had meant to him.

Pepper looked pleased and her eyes softened. Taking her delicate hand and meeting her pale blue gaze, Tony said gravely, "You're important to me, Pepper, and I trust you. I've worked everything out with the lawyers and all we need is your signature….Pep, would you do me the honor of becoming the new CEO of Stark Industries?"

She let out a breath of relief. For a terrible moment, she had thought he meant to propose marriage. "Are you serious?" she asked dazedly.

"Absolutely. The company couldn't possibly be in better hands than yours," he vowed, deciding to forgo levity for the moment, because Pepper seemed to appreciate it when he was serious, and he was so_ tired_ of being a constant disappointment to the people he cared about.

Breaking out the champagne, Tony poured them each a glass and proposed a toast. The redhead finally came out of her stupor and proceeded to enter a celebratory mood that lasted almost four minutes. It didn't take long for her mind to begin to race as she thought of everything she would need to accomplish in the next few days.

"We're going to Monaco next week for the Grand Prix….What do you say we take a few days and celebrate? We'll be right on the French Riviera. Although we could always go to Italy or the Greek islands…" he trailed off, because she was already shaking her head no.

"That's impossible, Tony. You know that. There's so much work that needs to be done in order to have a smooth transition. It's just not a good time. Maybe later in the year when things settle down," she offered.

He forced a smile and agreed; although he had a sinking feeling that he'd be seeing less of her than ever now that she held a position of greater responsibility.

* * *

When Tony finally caught his mystery guest, no technology was involved at all—just good, old-fashioned trickery.

That night, once Pepper had returned to the office after a quick kiss and half a flute of celebratory champagne, Tony was feeling a little reckless and disappointed, which put him in the perfect frame of mind for enacting his plan.

To Laurel's eyes, once Tony came down to the lab that night, he seemed even more exhausted than usual. He made no attempts to communicate with her, which was irksome, because she had been waiting impatiently for him to look up and engage her. After about an hour of tinkering, the inventor finally slumped forward onto his workbench, to all appearances down for the count.

Rolling her eyes in fond exasperation, Laurel commenced with the ritual that had become somewhat routine over the past few weeks. She levitated him to the couch, switched his clothing, and summoned his blanket. But in the familiarity of the procedure, she forgot one simple detail. Most of those other times, he had been in a magic-induced sleep. Gently reaching out with the tips of her fingers to smooth back his hair, she startled when her wrist was suddenly imprisoned in a warm, dexterous grasp.

Gasping in shock, she jerked backwards, throwing them both off-balance and landing in a heap on the floor. Distracted by Tony's triumphant, handsome face grinning down at her, Laurel released her hold over her invisibility and concealing charms without even thinking about it. His eyes widened, and he stared at her with an unreadable look for several long moments.

With reproach, wonder and amusement mingling in her tone, Laurel breathed, "You _cheated_."

The engineer's alert dark eyes danced. "If only we had sat down together at the beginning and laid down some rules," Stark retorted with a look of mock-innocence.

The witch quickly regained her equilibrium. "I didn't anticipate you taking quite such a _hands-on_ approach," she smirked. "In hindsight, it seems rather obvious."

He quickly concealed his surprise and gave her his best shit-eating grin. "Yeah, well, you know what they say about engineers (and me in particular)—sharp mind, soft touch…"

"—hard heart and dull personality?" she queried drily, green eyes glinting wickedly.

Tony huffed out a laugh. "Well, we both know that _you_ don't find me dull," he said, waggling his eyebrows. "Thanks for all the coffee, by the way. I'll be glad to reimburse you, if, you know, you tell me your name, account number, all about your secret goddess powers, favorite sexual position, _why you've been stalking me_….Basic stuff, really."

She grinned at him in honest amusement, and noticed a tightness around his eyes ease at the gesture. Laurel realized that although he was keeping things light, he was wary of her powers and what she would do to him for trapping her. But he seemed a little less tense now than he had been a moment before, and she wouldn't have noticed had she not seen the shift occur. She winced as she lifted her elbow off her long hair, and Tony scooted back and allowed her to sit up, his expression slightly apologetic.

"Well, the last one's easy," she laughed. "I came because I was curious about your technology. I return because I like you."

His grin turned smug, and she could see his lips curving to deliver a snappy retort. Forestalling him, she asked silkily, "Have you read much Greek mythology, Mr. Stark?"

"I suppose I know as much as any innovative mechanical genius could be expected to know," he rejoined charmingly. "Ooh, am I the Odysseus to your Athena?"

"You flatter us both too much," she laughed, and Tony found himself shivering with pleasure at the sound.

Before he could reply with a wisecrack, she added, with a sharp grin filled with challenge, "But if you recall the story of Proteus, you'll know that it's unwise to release the magical being you've captured before you've gotten all of your answers."

Before he could react, she vanished into thin air an inch from his outstretched hands. Tony fell a little bit in love.

* * *

When Laurel reappeared in her room, she laughed with childlike happiness. She couldn't remember when she had last had so much fun…perhaps in the early days at the Burrow when she was too young and stupid to do more than accept people at face value. It wasn't until much later, when the adrenaline had worn off, that she began to question what she'd done.

* * *

Back in his lab, Tony stared at the empty space where the little dark-haired elf had just taunted him, and cursed loudly with mingled frustration and amusement. This skirmish might have turned out to be a draw, but the war would be his. Tony Stark wasn't a maestro of mechanics for nothing.

"Jarvis, did you manage to scan a clear image of her face?" he inquired, lightly touching the tile she had warmed with her body heat.

"Of course, sir. I've already begun running facial recognition scans of all cameras in the surrounding region. I will increase the focus area until I achieve a positive match," the AI averred.

Tony grinned in elation. He could almost taste his victory.


	10. Chapter 10

Note:Sorry about the delay on this chapter. I have one or two more chapters nearly finished that I'll have up in a day or so. I wrote them out of order. Apologies!

**Chapter 10: Romanoff**

Back in her hotel room, Laurel paced furiously. She hadn't meant to drop her invisibility. It had been a subconscious decision, made in a split-second of weakness. "I'm just like those criminals that are so proud of their own cleverness that they _want_ to get caught by the police," she remonstrated with herself.

She was panicking a little, because he had seen her face. _Jarvis_ had seen her face. If Tony had been anyone else, she would have returned and Obliviated him. She was angry at herself for her carelessness, but not nearly as angry as she ought to be, which made her even angrier…and a little frightened. Laurel had wanted him to _see _her for quite a while. Now he had, and she felt altogether unprepared for the consequences. The game had continued for so long that she didn't quite know what to do now that it had changed.

The witch couldn't decide how to behave. She supposed that she should carry on as she had before. It would be the safest route. Perhaps none of his cameras had managed to get a clear shot. Running a slim hand through her perpetually messy hair, Laurel tried to convince herself that her fears were all for nothing. The attempt wasn't particularly successful. If she had learned anything in the last few months, it was not to underestimate Tony Stark.

* * *

That night, Tony had his first dream about her. The witch was just as elusive in his subconscious as she was in reality. In his sleep, he remembered those bright, far-too-green eyes, the self-possessed, slightly mocking tilt of her lips, and how her slender, supple body had pressed against his for one long, charged moment. But in his dream, when he tried to embrace her, she fluidly slipped out of his grasp and returned to the shadows, gracing him with a taunting laugh before disappearing altogether.

He woke frustrated, feeling rather like he had stumbled into a fairy ring. According to tradition, if a man entered one of those sacred circles and glimpsed an elf, he would be captivated by her illusions forever afterward. Frowning, he acknowledged to himself that he was pretty damn captivated. Trying to shake off the feelings of futility dredged up by his dream, he wandered down to the lab to see if Jarvis had made any progress with his image search.

The wait maddened him. His AI had detected her twice, once outside a restaurant, and another time as she walked down a busy street. On both occasions, he gave pursuit, but she was long gone by the time he arrived, landing as Iron Man amid a crowd of curious and excited bystanders. Never a very patient man, especially now that he had so little time to live, the inventor came up with another scheme while Jarvis continued with the cameras. Perhaps a gift was in order. She had given him so much, and it couldn't hurt to reciprocate. All women liked jewelry, right?

Ever since their encounter, his visitor had continued to drop in and pretend that nothing had changed between them. She had remained invisible, left his coffees and usually a newspaper clipping or two, and sometimes spared a few written words for him in the evenings. He found this infuriating, because he had been so _close_. He had had her in his grasp, and foolishly released her, thinking his victory already secure.

* * *

This particular evening, Tony was in his home gym. Laurel hardly ever ventured into that part of the house, because Tony was rarely there at night; but his bodyguard, Happy, had dropped by and the two were sparring. Spock intently watched the fight from a padded work-out bench, occasionally emitting a soft, disapproving growl.

The witch observed for a little while, noting that the engineer moved with grace and agility—not qualities one normally associated with someone that donned metal armor to fight. His friend was larger and heavier, with a longer reach, but the inventor was swift and clever, instantly calculating each move with lethal precision.

The witch didn't know how long they had been boxing before she had arrived, but both seemed to be flagging. Their movements grew notably slower and clumsier over the next half hour; but they doggedly continued, neither wanting to give in. Laurel actually felt relieved when Pepper arrived with Tony's new personal assistant in tow. She impatiently leaned forward, wanting to find out everything about this new character coming on the scene.

When she saw the woman Pepper had brought to introduce to Tony, her first thought was that the redhead was either the most secure woman that had ever lived or that she didn't really care much about her romantic attachment to Tony. The new assistant was supermodel-gorgeous, with a body that had probably been immortalized in poetry or sculpture at some point. Laurel's eyebrows rose as she listened to Pepper rattle off the crimson-haired beauty's qualifications. Fluent in several languages? Modeled in Tokyo? The witch was officially impressed.

Dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, drenched in sweat and looking incredibly ill, Tony stepped out of the ring and came to greet the women. His eyes looked enormous and almost black beside the sickly pallor of his skin. Laurel's niggling worry that he might be unwell persisted. She felt like she had overlooked something important when it came to him. Tony was always checking some sort of levels that had to do with his arc reactor. Perhaps it had side effects. Or maybe it was somehow shortening his lifespan. She would have to look into it, because she couldn't stand the thought of anything bad happening to him. Laurel had never felt so protective of someone else in her life. She wasn't quite sure why. Tony Stark was about the furthest thing from a damsel in distress. He was a _superhero_, for Merlin's sake. But the more she saw of him, the more valuable he seemed.

Her respect for the tall, voluptuous new hire turned to suspicion when Tony cajoled her into the ring with his driver, Happy. She moved as quickly as a black mamba, using every part of her body to incapacitate the much larger man in less than a heartbeat. Laurel was sure this _Natalie's_ legs had been around his neck. She narrowed her eyes, because the only people likely to have those kinds of skills were ninjas, assassins, and other dangerous, well-trained, mercenary types.

Iron Man might be a hero, but Tony Stark was vulnerable and well-known. Besides the terrorists that might want Iron Man out of the picture, there were plenty of other people that coveted Tony's technology, or the man himself. Even the government was after his tech. She remembered the acquisitive gleam in Col. Rhodes' eyes when he had asked about Tony's old suit. She was reasonably sure that his avarice was on behalf of his employers; although no doubt they had promised that he would wear the suit and serve as the new, officially-sanctioned Iron Man if he managed to pry one out of its creator's hands. Her common sense told her that Rhodes wasn't the only avenue being pursued by the government. In any case, Ms. Rushman was about to be thoroughly investigated.

Tony flirted outrageously with both the redheads, but his heart didn't seem to be in it. Eventually, his guests took their leave and he disappeared around the corner, presumably to take a shower. Laurel didn't know whether or not to wait for him in the lab. Finally, she decided that a stalker ought not to care about things like appearing too needy, and apparated downstairs. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a small silver package lying on the work table where she usually left his coffee. A metallic green bow topped the square surface, with a gift tag peeking out from under the ribbon. The witch expected a trap, and deliberated for several moments before reaching out and snatching up the box.

The wrapping felt silky against her hesitant fingers; but she relaxed a bit when no needle pricked her skin or tiny capsule sprayed chemicals in her face. The card read, "_To the green-eyed goddess of stalkers, pyrotechnicians and engineers No hard feelings. From, your devotee._"

Still suspicious, but already smiling, Laurel gingerly plucked the ribbon and lifted the lid of the box. Inside lay a beautiful bracelet of gems and woven metal. Its gossamer threads glimmered in the light, setting off the large diamonds that sprinkled it to great effect. She couldn't quite determine its construction, because it gleamed strangely and sat so lightly and delicately in her hand. It seemed silvery at first; but when she shifted her grip, the metal glinted gold.

At some point during her awed perusal, Tony had reentered the lab. His black hair still shone wetly from his shower. The witch suspected that Jarvis must have notified him that she had discovered the package. "It's gold-titanium alloy," the inventor spoke up. "The same as my suit. Actually, the _very_ same. The scrap metal was what I had lying around my lab when I made it."

"_And I suppose the diamonds were also just 'lying around your lab'_," Laurel retorted via the whiteboard.

He felt a little anxious that she would realize he'd chosen that metal because it was his own particular alloy. The engineer secretly liked the idea of sharing a connection with her, of them being the only two people in the world to don that metal; it was almost like having her wear his colors. Tony gave an exaggerated shrug and said flippantly, "Well, no, but…I mean, I know it's just a trinket to you. You could probably make something like this just as easily with your magic. I remember when you created that sword with the huge emeralds."

Horrified that he would denigrate something so beautiful, she exclaimed, "_You're wrong. In order to create something, I first have to imagine it. I could never have envisioned anything so exquisite. The design is intricate and unique. I've never seen a piece that is more to my taste." _

"Flatterer," he retorted laughingly.

"_Sometimes_," she agreed easily, "_but never to you. And it's nothing less than the truth when I say that you make quite the gifted goldsmith….At the risk of sounding appallingly sentimental, this gift is even more precious because you made it with your own hands._"

Tony blinked as he read the words. He had honestly thought that his present would just be a cheap token to her; and the idea that it had value because it had come from him, because _he _had made it, slowly filled him with warmth.

Even though it had been cleverly hidden, Laurel had detected the tracking device in the clasp almost immediately because she had been looking for it. "_Although I doubt you'll still want me to have it when I tell you that I plan to disable the tracker_," she added ruefully.

He laughed aloud, having expected her to find it all along. But what she didn't know, and hadn't discovered, was that in addition to the obvious microchip in the clasp, one of the diamonds wasn't really a diamond. It was an extremely sophisticated construct of nanoparticles, which made up an optoelectronic tracking device. He defied her to find that, even with her magic. The inventor replied, "I made it for you, and refuse to take it back. Consider it spoils of war."

"_Is that a declaration of surrender?"_ she teased.

"Now? When I'm so close to victory?" he asked incredulously.

"_What do you expect to win?_" she asked in genuine curiosity.

He seemed surprised by the question, opening and closing his mouth several times. "I want to unravel all your secrets until I know you like nobody else does," he finally declared boldly.

"_And what would you do with that knowledge?_" she inquired, leaning forward intently.

"Well, first I would gloat extensively. That goes without saying. And then I would ask a million questions….But mostly I'd just…_savor it_," he replied, smiling lazily in her general direction with half-lidded eyes.

It occurred to Laurel that if he didn't stop being so adorable, she'd soon be in serious trouble. Not quite knowing how to respond, she cleared her throat and wrote, "_My thanks. I'm certain that when I wear it, I'll think of you_."

He tried to ignore the way the blood suddenly surged in his ears. "You know," he blurted suddenly. "I'm going to Monte Carlo in five days; and there's going to be a party Friday night at the Hôtel de Paris. You could come—if you want. I could finally return the favor and buy you a drink, and you could protect me from all the gold-diggers and politicians.

"We could have a truce, just for the night. I wouldn't have home-field advantage anymore….Actually, you don't even have to make yourself visible if you don't want to, as long as you come. Please? I hate drinking alone, and I hate drinking with stupid people. It's really a catch-22, unless you show up to break the vicious cycle. What do you say?"

"…_I will think about it_," she wrote, unable to give a flat denial when he genuinely seemed to want her there.

* * *

**S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters**

"I met Stark tonight, and don't think there will be any problems on that front. I had him eating out of my hand," Romanoff reported, lounging catlike in the uncomfortable chair in front of Nick Fury's desk. "I wasn't able to gain access to his personal laboratory tonight, but it won't be hard to manufacture a reason in the next few days. I start as his personal assistant tomorrow."

The one-eyed director observed her thoughtfully; feeling much more relaxed now that he had one of his people on the Stark situation. He had been immensely irritated with the billionaire when he'd postponed hiring his new assistant. It had left Romanoff in town for weeks with nothing to do, and she was far too valuable an asset to keep on ice. "There's no immediate rush, he began. "Don't raise his suspicions….There's something else I want you to look into."

"Oh?" she asked, raising one shapely eyebrow.

"Stark has been hacking into several databases. He's looking at CCTV cameras all over the area, linking them to his own facial recognition software. He's been searching for one face in particular. We believe it's this one," Fury declared, quickly pulling up a few video frames on his wall monitor.

The assassin stared at the footage. The recordings had been taken on two separate occasions, but the woman in the shots was definitely the same.

"Look at the way she raises her sunglasses to wink up at the traffic cam," Romanoff pointed, as the second video looped back around. "She knows he'll see."

"Or at least she's hoping he will….Stark flew to these locations as Iron Man minutes after she passed through. He didn't manage to catch her either time, which is strange. You would think that once he had a lock on her with the cameras, he could just follow her progress and cut her off," he pondered, freezing the frame, and catching a glimpse of bright, pale eyes in the Jane Doe's face.

"Who is she?" asked Romanoff interestedly, noting that the woman didn't seem particularly remarkable, in her Iron Man t-shirt and jean skirt.

"That's what I need you to find out. No identity goes with this face. As far as anyone knows, she doesn't exist," he retorted sternly. "Find out who she is, and more importantly, who she's working for."

"Stark knows her," the voluptuous spy observed, wondering what the woman had done to gain the undivided attention of one of the most powerful men in the world.

"Yes, they've definitely been in contact, and that's exactly what's so worrying," Fury replied ominously, staring with narrowed eyes at the video monitor long after Romanoff left the room.

* * *

Laurel had been on tenterhooks since Tony and Jarvis had spotted her. Two days afterwards, just as she had left a restaurant and automatically raised her Notice-Me-Not Charm, she'd heard a commotion behind her. It was Iron Man fending off legions of fans and sweeping his hidden gaze back and forth…searching for her. _The cameras._ It had to be. She had noticed them when she'd turned on the porch to look at the sea before leaving.

Even though she was awed by his capabilities and a little bit afraid that he'd found her once, Laurel was a gambler and a risk-taker at heart. So instead of leaving town or doing anything a sensible person might do, she bought an Iron Man t-shirt from a street vendor and wore it out the next day, looking straight up at a camera and winking.

She had waited and watched, and sure enough, Iron Man had dropped from the sky almost exactly where she'd stood moments before. That was confirmation enough for her that these cameras were responsible for his newfound tracking ability. From now on, she would have to be very careful not to let down her guard in the city. All she needed was Iron Man attracting a huge crowd and drawing attention to her. Mass Obliviations weren't outside her scope of ability, but became much trickier when cameras were involved. Also, sometimes it was difficult to spot all the witnesses. How many murderers and mobsters had been laid low by some innocuous spectator that had slipped under their radar? It wasn't a position she wanted to find herself in, but unless she took care, it was an inevitability.

Because Laurel felt on shaky ground when it came to Tony, she spent the next couple of days trailing his new assistant and trying to think about him as little as possible. It was harder for her to keep up the silent, invisible act these days than it had been in years. All of a sudden, she was bursting with conversation. Every time she saw anything funny, or interesting, or difficult to understand, she wanted to talk to Tony about it.

She kept up her good deeds, but now they usually took place after closing hours. Frequently, her exploits didn't make it into the paper; and on those days, she would leave Tony a note instead of a clipping. The one she had dropped off this morning read, "_Two children, Brittle Bone Disease, Chicago. Treated with single dose of the potion Skele-Gro every day for three days. Result: Bones now strong. Bodies have adapted and started producing collagen at normal rates. Experiment successful._"

Her memos to Stark might have been cold and clinical, just a clumsy effort to reach out to him and please him; but she had no idea how much he treasured this tangible evidence that she craved his admiration. Tony marveled at the miracles she accomplished, and at the fact that she openly confessed to doing them for him. He saved all of her notes and clippings in a cigar box that he hid in his closet, and tried not to think too hard about his sudden foray into hoarding.

* * *

The task Laurel had set herself proved incredibly boring, because the new hire was never left alone. Pepper guided her around company headquarters and taught her the job, which seemed to involve a lot of scheduling and calls. Laurel felt a little bad for Rushman. Nearly every office worker she passed craned their neck to follow the motion of her body. The witch knew from experience that it was exhausting to be ogled constantly. Back in the wizarding world, she had been a familiar face and hadn't been able go anywhere without being scrutinized by judging eyes. It had been a slightly different scenario, because people hadn't been eying her for her sex appeal, but the experience had been quite uncomfortable all the same.

On the third day, Pepper finally left her fledgling employee to her own devices. Laurel had become a bit complacent, following closely behind the redheaded assistant whenever she ran errands. In spite of her allure, Ms. Rushman knew how to take care of business. A sharp mind lurked behind that seductive charm. The witch found herself bored to death, noting that if she had Rushman's job and had to argue with twittering imbeciles all day, the Imperius Curse might see quite a bit more use than it currently did.

On day four, Laurel was ready to give up. Rushman hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't a crime to be good at her job. It wasn't even a crime to call Tony and say, "_Hello, Mr. Stark_," in a low, sultry voice that might as well have been saying, _"Happy birthday, Mr. President;"_ although Laurel secretly felt that this should, in fact, be considered a crime. She told herself that she wasn't jealous, just…concerned.

But Rushman never departed the straight and narrow. She hadn't even approached Tony in person yet. So far, she had opted to contact him by phone because of the backlog of work she'd acquired during the transition. Iron Man was in high demand, and now that the Expo had started, so was Tony Stark. Rushman had been swamped with requests for his appearance by everyone imaginable—media outlets, visiting dignitaries, celebrities, charitable organizations, et alia. She was also kept busy making the arrangements for his impending visit to Monaco.

Absentmindedly counting Rushman's steps as she strode purposefully towards the elevator, Laurel forgot her suspicions and walked a little too close to her heels. All at once, the redhead spun around, sweeping a long leg in an arc around her. Her foot nearly caught Laurel in the ribs, and if the assistant's pencil-skirt had allowed for better range of motion, she would have had a direct hit. The witch leaned backwards in surprise and lost her balance, landing on her tailbone with a painful impact. Scooting backwards on her rump, the witch stared warily up at the woman, who no longer seemed the least bit friendly or harmless. Rushman probed in every direction with her calculating eyes, and at one point even seemed to sniff the air.

That encounter rekindled Laurel's suspicions; and she wasn't even surprised when, at the end of the day, Rushman effortlessly broke into Tony's empty office. The spacious room adjoined the redhead's own office, and she padded in as though she owned the place, sitting down at the desk and firing up the computer. Rushman pulled a small device out of her skirt pocket and slipped it into one of the side slots. Laurel had never seen any technology like this before. It didn't look like a traditional flash drive.

The witch grudgingly admired the other's cold-blooded efficiency, and probably would have let her carry on with her business if her actions had threatened anyone but Tony. But the brazen spy had made the mistake of targeting the one muggle in the whole world that mattered to Laurel; and for that, she had just gained a magical opponent.

Leery of approaching too closely after her earlier experience, Laurel carefully eased around the desk and looked over the former-model's shoulder. Somehow, the woman had already circumvented his password to gain entry. She was currently trying to access his engineering files—probably hoping they were his suit specs. The witch had seen enough, and cast a Confundus Charm on the spy. If she had known that Rushman was malicious in the beginning, she would have just read her mind and saved herself the trouble of following her around to her dull day job.

The witch followed up the Confundus with a light Compulsion Charm before the dazed look had quite faded from her eyes. "While you were in the lady's room, you dropped your little metal spy gadget into the toilet and it was flushed away….Now, _take me to your leader_," Laurel whispered, carefully modifying the assistant's memory after she had exited Tony's office in an enchanted haze.

Pocketing the device, the witch followed the beautiful spy out to her car, a black BMW—probably government-issue, now that she thought about it. She followed along in her Animagus form, unable to decide whether she felt happy or sad about her instincts being proved correct. It sickened her that so many people tried to prey on Tony. And Rushman! The inventor had been so kind to her the other night, bantering back and forth and insisting that Pepper make sure to give her a nice office and parking spot. He didn't deserve this treatment, and Laurel wouldn't allow it to continue. No one but her was allowed to get the best of Tony Stark.

The witch transformed and sped up to make it into the darkened bar before the door fell shut behind Rushman. She tailed her over to a plush booth, where a muscular, shrewd-looking man with an eyepatch awaited her. He wore a tough, black leather coat that seemed expensive, but too warm for the mild California weather. Perhaps he was just passing through.

He nodded at the spy and said, "Romanoff, your report."

When Laurel heard him call the woman by another name, she realized that this wasn't some employee that had been turned, but an operative maneuvered into position for a specific purpose. She had feared as much….Just who were these people?

For the first time since the witch had starting observing her, Rush—no, _Romanoff_—displayed an emotion that was less than flattering. Confusion and embarrassment warred in her features. "My observation period ended yesterday, and today was the first real opportunity I had to act without suspicion, but I had a…mishap," she admitted with a self-directed frown.

"Were you caught?" he asked in concern.

"No, but I need new tech. The device was damaged and I wasn't able to implant the virus," she confessed delicately.

Laurel smirked at how carefully the agent was avoiding the particulars. But she supposed spies generally didn't drop expensive equipment in the loo—unless they wanted to be known as the Agent Clouseau of the department.

"You need to get closer to Stark. He's behaving erratically, even more so now than usual. Appointing his old secretary CEO of his company, withdrawing from the public eye….Something's going on with him. Something big," the man declared.

Laurel blinked at that. How had she not noticed? She made the worst spy _ever_, she thought to herself ruefully.

"He looks sick in his recent photographs," the man continued. "Perhaps his old substance abuse problems are back. I need you to find out exactly how big a liability he is and whether we need to neutralize him."

At his talk of 'neutralizing' Tony, Laurel saw red. Decisively, she reached out and touched the edges of his mind. And what an interesting mind it was. So he was Nick Fury, the director of this _S.H.I.E.L.D_. A government agency. Figures. This organization was entirely too concerned with Tony if the director himself was personally involved. She would follow him back to his headquarters and see what she could learn.

Laurel toyed with the idea of casting a mild Bad Luck Jinx on Romanoff, but hesitated to do that to anyone that would be operating a motor vehicle. She slipped out of her booth and moved to the empty one behind Fury. It gave her a view of Romanoff's face, and the thoughts swirling around her surprised Laurel. This was a woman that had experienced untold horrors, but they'd made her strong and dangerous. She didn't bear Stark any ill-will. It was all business with her.

While she listened, she conjured a pen and took careful notes. When their food arrived and the conversation slowed down, Laurel began doodling. She idly stared at the back of Fury's shiny bald head, bisected by the elastic band that secured his eyepatch. Suddenly she had an idea—a terrible, wonderful, completely depraved idea. Transfiguring the pen into a black Sharpie marker, she drew the outline of a thong on the paper before her, with a small shield emblazoned on the crotch. Summoning a red permanent marker, she colored in the underwear. Then, she transferred all of the color off the paper and onto the back of Fury's head. His eyepatch strap made a perfect waistband for the brightly-colored thong.

She was glad she'd cast a Silencing Charm on herself, because she started giggling like a little kid and couldn't stop. Summoning her camera from her bottomless bag, she snapped a few still pics to cheer up Tony. He would need something to lighten his spirits once he found out that his new assistant was a traitor. Laurel kept the camera out, because she fully intended to capture the timeless moment when Fury became aware of his condition with its video feature. If the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was pranked and Tony didn't get to watch, well, that would be a travesty.

Laurel was laughing so hard that she didn't notice when the waitress came to seat people at her booth. Suddenly, two sweaty, beefy guys slid in across from her. Just as their even larger companion was about to crush her against the wall, she reluctantly Disapparated, sulking as she was forced to wait for the agents out in the parking lot.

When Nick Fury left, she flew along behind him as he traveled north, to one of his smaller compounds just outside Sun Valley. It looked like a military base, but could conceivably have been mistaken for a manufacturing plant. Fury headed straight for a large room full of computers and said something to one of his agents, who was wearing a solid black catsuit.

Laurel couldn't stand the suspense, but eventually some brave soul pointed out Fury's decorative new addition. After two people volunteered their hand mirrors, he finally saw the image for himself. He stared dumbstruck for several long moments, floored by the sheer audacity of the 'artist'. When his tantrum finally came, it was delightfully epic. "G******it! Who the f*** drew a mother******* dick on the back of my head?" he exploded, terrifying a few interns and leaving most of the agents with desperately twitching lips.

Somebody pulled out a camera phone, and he bellowed, "Stevens, if you don't stow that phone right now, I'll shove it where it'll set off every metal detector you encounter for the rest of your life."

His minion meekly did as he was told, but Fury knew that even without physical documentation, the thong incident would not be forgotten by anyone in the room. No doubt it would live on in the agency's oral traditions.

After the excitement had died down, Laurel put her camera back in her pocket and began to wander. She looked around for the oldest analyst she could find, hoping that his security clearance would be commensurate with his age. When that didn't work, she fell back on passive legilimency. Apparently, as high-tech as they were, S.H.I.E.L.D. actually kept paper files. When she reached the records room, a young guard stood posted beside the thick, metal entryway. Laurel ignored him, peering through the grate and then apparating directly inside. It didn't take long for her to discover some damning information. There were files on Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury, but even she could see that they were woefully incomplete. But even the censored, G-rated versions came with photographs, and would prove that Rushman was a government plant.

She shamelessly began reading Tony's file, after casting a quick Obscuring Charm on the four ceiling cameras. The witch saw that some agent named Phil Coulson had collected most of the information on the inventor. Apparently, Romanoff had been appointed as Coulson's replacement. It was unclear whether the agent had been needed elsewhere, or whether Fury had thought a beautiful woman might be more successful at making Stark talk, considering his playboy reputation.

The more she dug, the more interesting the documentation. It appeared that Tony was being assessed for something called the Avengers Initiative. They had made a side-note that he had already turned them down, but that certainly wasn't stopping them. _Bastards_. The other Avenger candidates were interesting. Basically, S.H.I.E.L.D. was blackmailing or conscripting anyone with special powers. Surprisingly, Romanoff was one. _Codename: Black Widow. Specialization: assassin._ Tony really had the worst sort of luck, she mused.

This Agent Coulson seemed to be a sort of Avenger liaison, and his file was full of paperwork about people he had already managed to recruit. She collected and duplicated all the records for everyone mentioned, and the list of likely candidates. She shuddered to think of her name appearing on that list. Deciding that she'd rather read over everything in her hotel room, she disapparated, leaving the original records just as she'd found them.

Four hours and two visits to the minibar later, Laurel tried to make sense of what she'd discovered. S.H.I.E.L.D. was dangerous, and ubiquitous. They might just be the most powerful military force in the world, and they had Tony-her wonderful, gentle, merry-hearted Tony-in their sights. They wanted his suits, but weren't so sure they wanted the man. Apparently, they had instructed him to keep his identity as Iron Man a secret. If he hadn't abandoned his cue cards on live television, he would probably have already been 'neutralized' and some government toady would be prancing about in his suit.

Deciding that the inventor needed to know what she'd found right away, she began a note to him. She was feeling incredibly worried and protective, but decided that her letter should stick to the facts. Logic had always comforted her (maybe because of its rarity in the wizarding world); and she suspected that a scientist might share that feeling. She didn't know whether to mention Fury's talk of 'neutralization'. It was a rather ambiguous term, and she didn't want Tony to be unduly alarmed, because he would probably be forced to work with these people at some point, at least in a limited capacity. Besides, no one was going to touch a hair on his head while she was around. It would take a long time, but perhaps she should use legilimency on the rest of his employees and see if she couldn't ferret out any more traitors. _That_ would be a gift that Tony could appreciate.

* * *

That afternoon, Tony found a neat stack of folders waiting for him on his workbench with a letter on top on crisp…parchment? How bizarre. The inventor smiled absently to himself as he set about finding what his little witch was up to this time. After he read the first line, the smile dropped from his face.

_Tony, Natalie Rushman works for S.H.I.E.L.D. under a man named Nick Fury. She is an extremely dangerous Russian assassin named Natasha Romanoff. Codename: Black Widow. She is apparently vetting you for something called the Avengers Initiative, but espionage is not off the table either. I caught her trying to hack into your suit files earlier. I distracted her, but she will try again now that she has almost unlimited access to the building, although I don't think there's a way to keep someone like her out. She's apparently a super spy. I went to their headquarters (address below) and found all the files that seemed relevant. The next move is yours. Choose wisely. Your resident poltergeist P.S. I lifted the device in this baggy off Romanoff earlier today when she broke into your office and tried to use it on your computer. I heard her say something about it being a virus. P.P.S. Enjoy the pictures of Mr. Fury with my compliments. P.P.P.S. The video is even better._

Tony had cultivated an image of himself as a flippant, absentminded inventor that loathed reading and research. It made everyone underestimate him delightfully, but he could be deadly serious when he needed to be. He read, and allowed himself a brief moment of hurt and regret that the beautiful redhead that had so intrigued him had been an assassin. Perhaps she was meant to take care of the 'cleanup' in case S.H.I.E.L.D. decided that he was too powerful to be allowed to operate outside their Aegis, but wasn't Avengers material.

He pondered what to do, and examined the device Laurel had liberated from the agent. He had a fairly good idea of what it was. No doubt it was meant to infect Jarvis with spyware, so that they could monitor all his activities and inventions. Tony was leaving for Monaco the next morning, and 'Rushman' would be on the plane with him. It would probably be safer to wait to deal with her until he returned home. Perhaps he could reassign her so that she had less access to anything sensitive. He found the idea of keeping the assassin around to be deeply creepy, but knew that if he fired her, Fury would just send someone else. Also, he would want to know how his agent had been compromised and view him as even more of a threat than he already did. Any way he looked at it, he was in a very difficult situation.

His day improved significantly when he picked up the small digital camera. Gasping in speechless glee, the inventor savored the proud moment when he realized that his witch had gotten one over on the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. The still shots were good, but Fury's meltdown was priceless. He laughed so hard that he actually fell over, and almost couldn't catch his breath to tell Jarvis that there was nothing wrong with him, and that he shouldn't call the paramedics.

* * *

**Monaco**

Tony sat at the bar of the legendary Hôtel de Paris in utter boredom. He had already had run-ins with Justin Hammer and Christine Holier-Than-Thou-Even-Though-I-Fell-Into-Your-Bed-On-Our-First-Meeting-and-Wrote-Gossip-About-Your-Personal-Life-For-A-Fashion-Rag-Everhart (Okay, so maybe he was a _little _bitter). He and Pepper had arrived together, but she had split off from him the moment they'd entered the door, wanting to make the rounds and sooth bloated egos. Tony felt thankful that she was willing to do it, because he couldn't be bothered. He had reached that dangerous stage of drinking, where he had had just enough alcohol to make him tired and lethargic, but not nearly enough to buoy his enthusiasm or dull his devastating wit. Hammer had found_ that_ out the hard way, Tony thought with grim satisfaction. The other man had practically limped away from their earlier sparring. But now the engineer had no one to play with.

Several people he knew had approached him, and been summarily greeted with false smiles and a few lines of polite small-talk…or the occasional bit of trash-talk. Beautiful, gold-digging women always flocked to him, hoping that he would see something unique in their mass-produced personas. He looked past them, unable even to pretend to listen to their prattling now that he had no interest in sleeping with any of them. Some fans had greeted him, and that had been rather more pleasant, but the party was just so _dull_. The music sounded like something he'd heard in an elevator fifteen-years-ago; the women all struck him as insipid; and _Justin Hammer was there_. That fact alone significantly lowered the party's potential.

Glancing over at a table near the dance floor, he spotted Rushman—no, _Romanoff_, charming two young security guards. While she laughed her sultry laugh, her cold gaze roamed around the room, taking in its every nuance. How could he not have realized that she was a spy? The graceful, dangerous way she moved, the hard glint that never left those lovely, grey-green eyes…everything about her practically screamed 'predator'. He hoped she didn't approach him. Since Laurel's revelations, he had barely found it in himself to be civil to his new assistant, and avoided her as much as possible, knowing that the trained spy would pick up on his uncharacteristic, icy reserve. But he felt worn and heartsick at reaping betrayal at every turn. He had taken a chance on Natalie Rushman, had offered her a job and his friendship, only to discover that she meant to compromise Jarvis, help steal the things he had made, and force him into indentured servitude to a government agency. He quickly looked away and downed the rest of his drink.

Before he could beckon the bartender over, the inventor caught sight of something that almost made him fall off his stool. In a form-fitting, Grecian-style gown in emerald green, his little sorceress swept into the room as if she owned the place. No one seemed to notice her presence, and he couldn't understand why. She was mesmerizing. Her collarbone and one white arm were completely bare, save for the diamond bracelet (_his_ diamond bracelet, he noticed with a thrill), which encircled her delicate wrist. The dress was pinned at one shoulder, with golden fretwork adorning the neckline, and gauze fluttering breezily over her other arm, almost pooling at the floor. Her calculating green gaze swept the room, finding him almost immediately. Her lips quirked up slightly in greeting as she prowled towards him, and Tony's boredom evaporated, to be replaced with the keen sense of exhilaration that she always evoked in him.

"Is this seat taken?" she drawled, amusement playing around her mouth as she drank in the engineer's astonished expression.

"You actually came," he murmured in awe, as she boldly perched beside him, so close that he could feel the fabric of her skirts brush against his legs.

Glancing up and meeting his profound dark eyes, Laurel retorted playfully, "Well, I _was_ invited. How could I resist a foray into the neutral zone? It's only sporting."

"After you slithered out of my grasp the other night, I thought you didn't have much use for 'sportsmanship'," he snorted.

"My dear Mr. Stark, I have a use for everything," her smile was sharp and predatory, and made his pulse pound loudly in his ears.

The witch had seen him in a suit before, but it had been from a distance. Up close, his bone structure seemed almost aristocratic, from his well-carved cheekbones to his straight nose to his strong chin. He bore the evidence of his mother's Italian heritage in his glossy dark hair and perpetual tan. His regular features guaranteed a degree of handsomeness, but his looks weren't what made him so compelling.

She would never have described him as her ideal. She had always preferred tall, lean men with posh accents and long, pale throats, but Stark never played by the rules. In spite of preferences and common sense, she found him devastatingly attractive, but supposed it was only natural. Tony would be hard-pressed to find a woman that didn't find him irresistible. Who could deny his charisma and vitality, those dark eyes that blazed with preternatural intelligence, his wonderful humor and astonishing depths of goodness? Not her, apparently.

"And what use have you found for me?" the inventor asked, trying not to show how interested he was to hear the answer.

She favored him with a sinful smile. "I'm finding it hard to narrow it down to one. You seem very…versatile."

Laurel would normally never be so forward with anyone, but she had an unprecedented level of comfort with Tony. She had watched him in his dirty work clothes as he guzzled coffee, traded insults with Jarvis, and had long, one-sided conversations with his dog about applied physics. She had seen his heart, and now she felt like she knew him.

"Are you flirting with me, C.B.?" he quipped, basking in her attention.

"Just making conversation," she retorted airily, although her teasing grin belied her words.

Leaning towards her and surreptitiously sniffing her hair, he said _sotto voce_, "For the record, if you were, I wouldn't mind."

"But sadly, the lovely Ms. Potts probably would," she rejoined, eyes sparkling with mirth.

"Look at you, always thinking of others," he pouted playfully.

Laurel snickered and asked, "Was that a compliment or an accusation?"

"What do you think?" he rejoined, as he busily tried to commit her appearance to memory.

"I think that only a lover could make that an accusation. Since you're not, you must have meant it as a compliment, so I'll thank you for it," she reasoned, a gleam of challenge flashing up at him from under her lashes.

Tony loved having her undivided focus. Experiencing the full force of that bright gaze was the most intoxicating feeling he knew. He had always enjoyed attention—he blamed his loveless childhood for that—but didn't quite know what to make of his sudden desperate craving for her regard. He was only aware of his overwhelming need because it was being fed, but he shuddered to think of the devastating withdrawal he would experience if he lost her interest. After a moment of reflection, he supposed it was a moot point, because he would probably die before that could occur.

"If you're really feeling grateful, you might tell me your name," he ventured nonchalantly.

"I thought men liked mystery. Anyway, does it really matter?" she murmured disinterestedly, and scrambled for something to say that would distract him from further questing.

"I'd like to know who to pray to," Tony rejoined with a smirk, uttering the cheesy remark with enviable confidence.

She groaned and dropped her head at the terrible line, but couldn't help but be a little charmed at the same time. His force of personality could cover a multitude of sins.

"Hold off on that," she laughed. "Even I know that things don't tend to go particularly well for anyone that's ascribed divine honors. Besides, if you want something, you only need ask. It's not necessary to get on your knees."

"What if I want to?" he smirked cheekily.

With a grin fighting to mar her deadpan expression, Laurel retorted, "You just _had_ to take it there, didn't you?"

"You totally set me up. Don't deny it," he murmured playfully.

He looked up and frowned slightly. Laurel followed his gaze and spotted the beautiful red-headed assassin. She resisted the impulse to bare her teeth at her.

"It's my understanding that several James Bond movies took place in Monte Carlo. I suppose it's rather _de rigueur_ for spies to make an appearance here," she commented, idly inclining her head towards Tony's new assistant, who was glancing alertly around the room as though searching for something.

Romanoff was probably looking for her employer, but she would never spot him under her Notice-Me-Not Charm, Laurel thought smugly, absently fingering the delicate wire of her bracelet.

Tony grimaced at the reminder that he had another Obadiah working for him. Grasping hold of her earlier comment, he inquired, "I almost missed it, but you just made a pop culture reference! You know about James Bond?"

The witch glanced at him and grinned, the low light from the chandeliers causing an interesting play of shadows over her eyes and the hollows of her cheeks. "Wikipedia," she shrugged. "I've been trying to educate myself on arts and entertainment to blend in better."

Stark nearly sputtered with horror. "You're going about this all wrong! Pop culture has to be experienced firsthand. You'll never understand the appeal of the James Bond movies unless you see them for yourself."

When she looked at him doubtfully, he declared, "I think you're going to need a tutor. He'll have to have impeccable taste—that's a given. So someone cultured, with a wide knowledge base, dazzling sense of humor, breadth of experience…" Tony trailed off, his playful offer filling the space between them.

"So you think I need to find an elderly man?" she asked in mock-confusion, eyes dancing with delight at his sudden pique.

His dark eyebrows rose comically. "Elderly?" he yelped. "No! _Someone_ in the prime of his life," he corrected.

"Like that bloke over there?" she inquired disingenuously, pointing out a random man in the crowd.

"You're a wicked little creature, aren't you? I really should have gone ahead with my plan to have an exorcist purify the lab," he retorted with a sly look.

"Oi!" she grinned.

"Would you like a drink?" Tony asked.

Now that she was so close, he could not stop staring. Always a tactile person, Tony struggled to reign in his desire to reach out and feel how soft her hair was, to see if her cheekbones were as sharp as they looked, or whether he would be able to feel the prickle of her magic if he stroked her skin. He needed a drink to hold _this very minute_ or he wouldn't be held accountable for his twitching fingers.

"Under the circumstances, a martini might be apropos," she proposed.

"Oh, good call. Now I guess we just lean back, sip our drinks, and try to look mysterious. Maybe people will think _we're _spies," Tony suggested, looking absurdly pleased at the idea.

Laurel snorted and considered his words, "Well, I suppose you could be a flamboyant agent like James Bond or Mata Hari. You're too noticeable to be a ninja spy like Romanoff."

"Hey! I could so be a ninja spy," Tony objected.

"No way," she grinned. "You'd be wasted in that line of work. Think of all the stillborn quips. Your mouth is one of your best assets, so you might as well play to your strengths. I bet you can talk your way out of—and into—anything."

"Well, some of us have to be glib because we don't have huge, unreasonably, preposterously, ludicrously green eyes to fall back on," he responded.

Laurel carefully set down her glass, afraid the tremor in her hand would reveal her momentary loss of sangfroid. A few moments passed in silence, while they indolently sipped their drinks and gazed out at the crowd.

"This party is quite tedious," she remarked finally, glancing around the room.

"You're telling me," the inventor returned fervently.

With a speculative glance at the inventor, who was half-heartedly using a toothpick to spearfish for his olive, Laurel asked, "Shall we liven it up a bit?"

"_Please_ tell me you're saying what I think you're saying," Tony responded, eyes lighting up with mirth.

"If you're wondering whether I'm talking about pranking people with magic, then yes, I am," she smirked, lightly tapping her glass to his in a mock-toast.

"'_Magical...pranking_'," he murmured in an awed tone.

"Is there anyone here that you particularly dislike? Let's start there," she urged.

The first time she had observed him, Laurel had suspected that Tony would make a most excellent pranking partner. It was finally time to put that theory to the test. "Well, Justin Hammer of course," he submitted, racking his brains for anyone else at the party he couldn't abide.

"Oh yes, he's awful. We may have to come up with something special for him later, but there's no reason we can't start him out with an appetizer," she smirked.

"Should we move somewhere else? We might be a little obvious if we stay at the bar," he objected.

Laurel shot him a _look_. "Haven't you wondered why no one has come up to you since I sat down? We're under half a dozen privacy charms. Nobody will notice us, and to anyone nearby, our conversation will sound like it's about whatever topic bores them most," she explained, pleased at his incredulous expression.

"Wow….By the way, how do you detect that spell? I think that several of my board members may have had that cast on them permanently. They're always talking about things like team-building, core competency and empowerment," he gave an exaggerated shudder.

She snickered and said, "You might be right about moving though. We'd have a nice vantage point to watch the chaos at one of those tables on the second level—maybe the one by the thick column."

He stared at her with a mixture of amusement and rapt admiration. "'_Chaos', _she says," he echoed reverently, and added laughingly, "'_Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night'_."

With a slow grin, she objected, "And now you mock me! But if chaos is what you want, you'll have it in spades. I just need to do a little drinking-thinking first."

Offering her his arm to walk up the stairs, Tony teased, "I think you may just wind up being a bad influence on me, Bandit."

Laurel laughed again and nudged him gently with her shoulder. Once they sat down at the table that was slightly hidden in shadow, but had a panoramic view of the party below, she asked, "Where's Spock? Did you leave him at home with Jarvis?"

"No. He'd never stand for that. He's in my hotel room watching _The Mask_. If that finishes early and he gets bored, I left the third audio book in the _Wizard of Oz_ series cued up for him. He's a total fanboy for Dorothy's dog. Was really disappointed when I explained that he and Toto weren't the same breed.

"I finally convinced him to wear a collar, and he agreed once I explained the GPS tracker to him and let him pick out the design. He can be reasonable, unlike _some_…" he insinuated, his eyes glinting in mock-chastisement.

His tracking device in the bracelet had been an abject failure. Whenever he tried to check her position, the readings were completely blank, like she wasn't even on earth. He didn't know that it was because she kept it in her bottomless bag, which was really an extra-dimensional pocket. Sometimes she took it out and admired it at night, but she rarely wore it, thinking it too fine for everyday use.

"For the last time, Tony, I will not let you tag me like a misbehaving animal with a tendency to stray from its preserve," the witch demurred.

"Do you _forbid_ it?" he asked cagily, stroking the marble inlay of the guardrail with his perpetually active, creator's hands.

"Oh, of course not. Ultimatums are for enemies. You're welcome to give it the old college try, but don't be embarrassed if you waste a fortune in tech and time," she taunted, knowing that he probably _would_.

As they polished off the rest of their martinis, Tony said with a wistful sigh, "Too bad there's no such thing as magical liquor."

Laurel's eyes lit up.


	11. Chapter 11

Note: I always overestimate my posting speed! Sorry everybody, and thanks for sticking with my story.

Chapter 11: Pranks and Possibilities

"Actually there _is_ such a thing as magical liquor…and this is our lucky day, because I just so happen to have some on me," the witch declared, to the engineer's dawning delight.

Producing a heavy amber bottle from her bottomless bag to Tony's look of awe, Laurel shrugged and tried to say, "For medicinal purposes only, of course," but couldn't keep a straight face, dissolving into laughter.

He held it up to the light and read, "'Ogden's Old Firewhisky'. Huh. So what does this stuff do?"

"Well, it burns a bit going down, but it's supposed to fill you with courage….And from what I've seen, it lives up to its reputation," Laurel returned, conjuring two tumblers. "Ice?"

"You know I'll take it, just to see you create the cubes from thin air," Tony admitted.

Tony watched as she artfully dropped a few pieces in each of their glasses. With forced casualness, he said, "I've been thinking….I don't really know very much about you at all. I mean, I know some of what you can _do_, but not who you _are_."

"What would you like to know?" she asked with an unreadable expression, wary of saying too much, but unable to prevent the small burst of happiness at the thought that he wanted to know _her_, and wasn't only curious about her magic.

"Everything, naturally, but I'm ambitious like that," he quipped. "First of all, if you're immortal, how old are you now? Do you age? Are you really a few hundred-years-old? Do you look around you and think, '_Look at all these foolish young mortals, driving too fast with their music up too loud'_?"

His attempt at mimicry startled a laugh out of the witch, and she answered, "No, I only know _one_ 'foolish young mortal' that does that….But to answer your question, I'll be twenty-six at the end of July. I stopped aging a few years ago though—when I was twenty-one or –two. It took a while before I noticed that I wasn't shedding any hair—even when I brushed it. And then somebody pointed me out in a picture from several years before and remarked that I hadn't changed at all. It was at that juncture that the reality started to sink in."

Tony mulled over this for a few moments. She was being uncommonly forthcoming tonight, and he wanted to learn as much as he could. "Will you tell me how you became immortal?" he asked hopefully.

She snorted. "I haven't had nearly enough to drink for _that_ conversation," she retorted.

"Well, we must remedy that," he smirked, holding up his glass and eying the amber liquid with interest. "What should we drink to?"

"I'll drink to your science," she said with a grin, lifting her tumbler and angling it towards him.

Not to be outdone, the inventor replied brightly, "Then I'll drink to your magic."

Tony was no naïf when it came to alcohol, and felt fairly certain that he could handle whatever alien concoction she had produced, as long as it was meant for actual human consumption. With an audacious grin, he tapped his tumbler against hers and took an experimental swallow. With a name like firewhiskey, he wasn't exactly surprised at the burning, tingling sensation in his mouth and throat. In spite of the fact that he almost felt he could spout flames, the whiskey actually slid down quite smoothly, with a rich, dry, smoky aftertaste. He felt a sudden wild tattoo in his blood, and instantly grasped what the witch had meant about it 'filling him with courage'.

Laurel took a dainty sip and tried not to grimace. She was an infrequent drinker, uncomfortable letting down her guard and trusting others. But Tony was savoring the firewhiskey like the seasoned scotch drinker he was, and she didn't intend to be left behind…well, not _too_ far behind.

"I like it. I feel like I'd turn into a berserker after about a quarter of a bottle of this stuff," he declared, and returned his attention to the woman beside him. "Since we're getting to know each other, I'll just move on to the next overly-personal, uncomfortable topic on my list, shall I?"

In response, Laurel fixed him with a sardonic look and took another deliberate swallow, feeling the alcohol seep through her like lava.

"So, what about your love life? Were you married? Did you leave a lover, boyfriend, anything like that back in your other dimension?" the engineer pried.

"No, I'm afraid not," she replied tersely, and when he seemed to want to know more, she reluctantly elaborated, gradually growing more impassioned, "Romance was never really a priority. At first, it was difficult enough just trying to stay alive. Then I learned how to read minds. Let me tell you, it rather puts you off your meal when your date is continually projecting their desire for your fame and money. After that, I became immortal, and then it seemed a bit of a moot point."

When Laurel glanced up at Tony, she saw a thousand micro-expressions flicker across his face. "You can read minds?" he asked, in a mixture of intrigue and trepidation.

The witch froze. "Oh, bugger!" she exclaimed. "I'm already telling you things I shouldn't, and I've barely started drinking….But in for a knut, in for a galleon, I suppose. Where I came from, it was extremely rare to meet a practitioner of the mind arts, but I needed to learn them because of…extenuating circumstances.

"Back when I occasionally tried to date, my shields weren't very good, and I was constantly being bombarded with stray thoughts. I've improved a lot, and never look into minds accidentally anymore. The minds of non-magical people have no natural shields, so it's almost too easy to take a glimpse. I know I shouldn't, but I sometimes peek. You wouldn't _believe_ the things I saw in Nick Fury's head."

Tony had started to look a little sick, and Laurel hastened to add earnestly, "I know you're wondering, but I've never looked in your mind or tampered with your memories. I would never violate you like that, I promise….I'd swear an Unbreakable Vow to show my sincerity, but since I probably can't die, it would be an empty gesture. So I'm afraid that you'll just have to take my word for it…or I can leave you alone. I'll understand if you don't want me around anymore and will respect your decision," she finished reluctantly.

"No!" he blurted without hesitation. "…I believe you."

The engineer drained his drink and poured himself another. After a moment of indecision, he topped Laurel's off as well. Her words had revealed a sinister power; and he knew he ought to be very afraid. But when his heart had begun pounding in panic, not at her revelation, but at her offer to leave, he was forced to admit to himself that, by comparison, her powers didn't frighten him at all. He wondered what that said about him and his morals.

His brown eyes met hers searchingly and he added finally, "People have always been intimidated by me too—by my money, mind, and ability. A large part of my whole playboy philanthropist image is a calculated effort to make me more accessible. It's lonely at the top, and I'd be the last person that would turn on you because of your gifts. Besides, I'm sure there are occasions when it's a huge asset—like in the bedroom."

He waggled his eyebrows comically, wringing a laugh out of her and dispelling some of the tension. "But hold on a second," Tony pried, "you just said you can tamper with memories?"

"Basically, I'm a master of Occlumency and Legilimency. The first is the art of guarding the mind from external penetration and the second is the art of viewing thoughts and memories. Basically, I can do almost anything that involves the minds of others. I can erase memories, alter them, influence people or turn them into my mind slaves. But just because I have this power doesn't mean I abuse it…much. The reason I learned Occlumency in the first place was to protect myself from that sort of violation, and I just sort of picked up Legilimency along the way. It was really a side-effect of learning the first discipline."

"Could you teach me? The idea of having a wide-open mind is kind of horrifying," Tony said, his hands playing restlessly with his glass.

"Unfortunately, magic is required to actively practice either specialty. But I believe that I could help you construct a mindscape that would effectively make you invulnerable to mind magic. I've never done it before, but am convinced the theory is sound….The only problem is that the set-up process would be extremely invasive. I'd have to enter your thoughts in order to build it, and might see memories that you didn't want me to see. Since I'm the only person we know of able to spy inside your head, it might be counter-productive to let me in to build defenses that would only be effective against me."

Tony's irrepressible curiosity resurfaced and he asked her question after question about mindscapes. Gradually, the conversation lightened and they ended up discussing how it felt to fly in his suit versus on a broom, which he desperately wanted to try. The alcohol continued to flow, and they forgot the party and their surroundings, and were completely wrapped up in each other. She told him about other forms of wizard transportation and communication, and Tony had much to say on the subject of owls and the Floo network (mostly uncomplimentary). At some point, Laurel told him about the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and Tony was amazed and incensed on her behalf. "Those bastard wizards did that to you when you were fourteen? They made you fight a dragon? And your parents let them get away with it?" he asked incredulously.

"I was orphaned at fifteen-months-old, and didn't have anyone to speak for me. My guardians were nonmagicals; and, had they been invited to the tournament, would have been the first to shove me into the arena with the dragon," the witch related coldly.

She only realized she'd clenched her fists when she felt his warm, callused fingers gently pry them open. Laurel felt a rush of gratitude towards the inventor. "So I guess when you came to this world, you weren't leaving behind anyone you cared about. Otherwise, they would have protected you," he clarified.

"People don't normally take a jaunt through something called the 'Veil of Death' if they're happy where they are," she volunteered with a painfully twisted smile.

Neither said anything for a few moments, but Tony suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of kinship with her. In her own way, she was as broken as he was; but she was also strong, like well-welded metal. "I'm sorry. These dark memories have no place at a party. Right now we should be happy. I've certainly got no cause to complain-good whiskey, excellent company…and the best view in Europe," Laurel murmured slyly, sneaking a glance at him from under her lashes.

He snorted in disbelief, but accepted her change of topic. Both of them were old hands at sealing away the darkness inside them, switching back to lighthearted merriment as quickly as blinking. Before long, they found themselves making frequent toasts. Laurel started it when she said, "To Merlin!"

For their next drink, Tony roguishly proclaimed, "To Sir Isaac Newton!"

The toasts got steadily more ridiculous, as Laurel praised various notable witches and wizards and Tony extolled famous scientists. "To Uric the Oddball!"

"To Pythagoras!" he rejoined with a laugh, noting that the firewhiskey had slightly numbed his lips.

"Hey, he was one of mine!" Laurel objected, noting how Tony's eyes glinted mischievously at her.

"To Alberic Grunnion, inventor of the Dungbomb!" Laurel retorted, unwilling to lose, but already beginning to have trouble articulating her words.

"To Robert Oppenheimer, father of the _atomic_ bomb. Beat that, wizards!" Tony crowed.

They drank and drank, but the bottle never seemed to get any lighter. Laurel tried to keep up with Tony, but it was really a hopeless endeavor.

"I can't drink anymore. I really should have stopped after the first two. But I guess I could hit myself with a Sobering Charm," she pondered, absentmindedly reaching up to run her hand through her hair, but forgetting that it was in a chignon. She winced when her fingers snagged on several bobby pins, and shook her head self-deprecatingly. Tony observed her predicament with laughter-softened eyes.

"Whatever that is, it doesn't sound pleasant," Tony quipped.

She replied as though revealing a great truth, uttering each word slowly in order to maintain her precision, "The problem with Sobering Charms is that they make you _sober_."

"I would have never guessed…but why would you want to go and do a thing like that?" he inquired, eyes dancing with amusement.

"Good point. It would obliterate my buzz. I'll just switch to water for a while," she decided, nodding to herself as if she had resolved a momentous conflict.

He could tell that she was well on her way to becoming plastered. It amused Tony that she still sounded so proper, continuing to use four-syllable words even though her voice had taken on a slight lilt that was only a half-step up from full-blown slurring. With a sardonic grin, the inventor mused, "Tomorrow's hangover will be one for the ages," as he took another sip.

He watched with interest as she conjured a tall glass and filled it with a wordless Aguamenti.

"Not necessarily. I could cast a Sobering Charm on you when you fall asleep," the witch volunteered.

"So you plan to be there when I fall asleep, eh?" he asked provocatively, tilting back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head, the very picture of smug nonchalance.

He snorted with laughter when Laurel gaped for a moment before enunciating carefully, "For _science_, Tony, not for anything in—_inappropriate_," she declared high-handedly. "Theoretically, if you fall asleep after drinking, and someone else casts the spell on you, you'll wake up without any alcohol in your system and won't have a hangover. It'll be an _experiment_."

"I like the way you think, and I'm mostly sure it's not just a Pavlovian response to the words 'science' and 'experiment'," Tony said appreciatively, before tilting his head to the side in thought. "You know, I mean it. I actually _do_ like the way you think. I've never said that to anyone before. In fact, it might possibly be the greatest compliment I've ever given out."

She smiled brightly at his praise, and after a moment asked curiously, "What's the second greatest compliment you've ever given?"

With a sly glance and a smirk that was all sin, he replied, "_I can't feel my legs_."

She snickered, and it quickly became full-blown laughter. After she caught her breath, the witch said affectionately, "I'm inordinately fond of you, Tony Stark."

He basked at this admission, and hoped he was able to remember it tomorrow.

"Of all the muggles in all the world, you are my absolute favorite," she continued happily, caressing him with soft, glossy eyes.

The witch was feeling warm and relaxed, not only from the alcohol, but also from Tony's safe, comforting presence. Laurel couldn't remember ever being so at peace around anyone. Her experiences with the Dursleys and wizards had made her extremely wary. Over the years, she had never shared even a conversation with someone without waiting for the other shoe to drop. But she already knew what Tony wanted from her. He'd told her, hadn't he? In her current state, his exuberant curiosity suddenly seemed impossibly innocent and endearing.

He snickered. "What's so funny?" she asked placidly, feeling far too pleasant to care if he laughed at her.

"Two things. First of all, have you ever seen _Casablanca_?" Tony, who was considerably more sober than Laurel, inquired with a lift of one dark eyebrow. "And also, you called me a 'muggle'."

"No, I've never been to Casablanca. Do you want to go to now?" she asked solicitously; before tilting her head in thought and adding, "Although I'm not sure they look favorably on alcohol consumption there…especially when a woman is drinking."

"I don't think so. I've seen enough of the desert to last a lifetime," Tony replied, valiantly trying to banish the resurging memories of Afghanistan. "But no, I was asking if you'd seen the movie, _Casablanca_. You inadvertently quoted it."

"No, I've never even heard of it," she replied with a slight shake of the head.

The engineer smiled gently and quipped, "We really should start your pop culture lessons right away. _Casablanca_'s a classic. Two former lovers meet again in a bar, are madly in love, but forced to separate forever because of their circumstances and sense of honor."

"It sounds terrible," Laurel retorted, propping an elbow on the table and resting her cheek on her hand, thinking that she had never seen anyone wear a grey suit quite so well.

"You would think so, wouldn't you? _ I_ would think so, and yet…it's one of the best damn things I've ever seen….But never mind that, why did you call me a 'muggle'?" Tony pressed.

"Because you_ are_ a muggle," Laurel persisted. "I checked."

When his face still showed an utter lack of comprehension, she added helpfully, "It means non-magical."

"I don't like it; it sounds too much like 'muddled, bungled, bumbled'….Besides, I want to be your favorite _person_, not just your favorite _muggle_," he dared.

"But you already are," she said earnestly. "I've just got one friend, and it's you….We _are_ friends…of a sort. Right?" she asked, peering up at him with anxious green eyes.

His expression grew impossibly soft and with a lopsided grin, he replied, "We most certainly are friends. In fact, if I'm your only friend, can I be your best friend?"

"Well, of course," the witch returned, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Since we're BFFs, will you tell me your name?" Tony inquired, hoping to tease a confession out of her, now that her usual sharp caution had been burned off with the firewhiskey, leaving her as warm and pliant as melted wax.

Laurel drew herself up and responded haughtily, "I may not be sober, and you may smell like Amortentia and be wearing the loveliest tie, but I'll not fall for your trickery again, Mr. Stark."

Fighting a smile, the inventor persisted with his questioning, "What do you mean, you 'checked' to see whether I was a 'muggle'?"

"The first time I saw you was back in February, when you were on the telly fighting planes and missiles. At first, I thought you were a robot, and then you lifted your visor. I'd never seen anything like you before, and thought you must be a powerful sorcerer to do the things you do. That's why I first visited you, but then I couldn't detect any magic," Laurel explained.

"Were you very disappointed?" Tony asked, idly swirling his drink and gazing into the amber depths, afraid that she would tell him what he dreaded to hear in her whiskey-induced honesty.

"Why would I be disappointed?" she asked in genuine perplexity.

"Because I turned out to be just another '_muggle_'. The most I can ever be to you is a distraction to pass the time until you meet more of your own kind," he tossed out flippantly, refusing to display even a hint of the maelstrom of fear and self-disgust swirling through him at the possibility.

She frowned. How could he think her so fickle? She'd been relentlessly stalking him for months. What did a girl have to do to show dedication these days?

"We both know that you're much, much more than that. I like you better than all the witches and wizards I've met. I'm not a goddess or a supernatural creature. I'm a _person_, and I like you for the same reasons other people like you…because of who you are—your mind and personality and little quirks. You have more value than just your usefulness, Tony (not to say that you aren't useful, because you are. You're brilliant.). But having magic wouldn't raise my respect for you or make me like you any better.

"Who cares that we're not good at the same things? It would be boring….Does it bother _you_ that I'm not a genius? That I have the formal scientific education of an elementary-age child? Do you find me lacking?" the witch demanded in an impassioned voice.

He stared glossy-eyed at the indignant little sorceress; and had never wanted to kiss anyone more than in that moment. "God, no! You're the most perfect being in the galaxy. Even without your magic, you'd still be perfect. And formal education is mostly a waste of time and money anyway. If you wanted to learn, I could teach you more science in an afternoon than you'd learn in a month of classes," Tony declared unashamedly.

"I'd never waste your time like that! It would be like having Beethoven teach piano lessons to a five-year-old," she returned, completely scandalized.

"Well, if you're ever interested, I'm already teaching Spock," the engineer confessed, quirking a grin.

"Spock might out-perform me," she dead-panned, sipping a little more water; all the intensity of a moment before had seeped away, leaving indolent good humor in its wake.

"Intimidated by a dog?" he teased.

"_Nooo_…." Laurel hedged, glancing away shiftily.

He chuckled softly, and glanced up at her to see her staring mesmerized at his hands. Tony was a man with a lot of nervous energy, and his fingers sometimes moved idly of their own accord. This continuous motion didn't irritate her, because his hands were so graceful that they seemed to be itching to create wonders she couldn't even imagine. When she noticed him watching her watch him, Laurel glanced away, pretending to be very interested in the party going on below. She spotted Pepper standing by the bar, wearing a navy blue dress with white polka dots. All she lacked was a sailor hat, the witch thought wickedly. She would have conjured one for her, but suspected Tony might not approve.

"Oh, Tony! We almost forgot to get Justin Hammer," Laurel said suddenly, the drink and conversation having completely fogged her earlier intentions until that moment.

Tony brightened. Who was he to say no to that? He followed her line of sight and spotted Hammer, with a glass in one hand and a plate in the other, standing in front of a fountain and chatting with two men in tuxedos. They seemed to be giving him very little feedback, placidly focusing on getting steadily drunker rather than his words.

"A variation on the Pied Piper Charm ought to do it," she snickered.

Tony looked vaguely alarmed and asked, "Are you sure you're sober enough to do magic?"

She gave him a superior look. "Oh Tony," Laurel replied pityingly. "I have a feeling that this is going to be some of my best work….By the way, if you want anything else from the buffet table, now is the time to get it."

Tony eyed her worriedly. After the two glasses of water she'd downed, her green eyes seemed much clearer, but now gleamed wild and dark. He suddenly remembered her terrifying power, but pushed aside his anxiety. Tony had never had much sense of self-preservation. The inventor fancied that he could feel her leashed magic building in the air around them, as potent as an impending thunderstorm.

"You might want to get out your phone. I promise you're going to want to record this. Wait for it…now!" she bit out.

The timing couldn't have been more perfect. The doorman had wandered away from his post, and the French doors had been left open to the balmy night. Suddenly, a strange yowling could be heard, and a rushing that sounded like many feet. Laurel rose, swaying slightly, and stood next to Tony to get a better view. The engineer's cheeks were flushed with alcohol and adrenaline, and he leaned forward, bracing himself against the railing with one hand, while keeping his phone at the ready.

The moment anyone realized that something was wrong, it was already too late. Dozens upon dozens of cats poured into the room, and all of them headed straight for Justin Hammer. Laurel had summoned every cat in the vicinity with her spell; and there had been quite a few more than she had anticipated. Easily a hundred cats had flooded through the open doors, aiming for the buffet tables, but taking a slight detour towards Tony's nemesis.

The surprise on Hammer's face was comical, as were the girlish shrieks when their charge caused him to overbalance into the fountain. Cats clambered around him, eating the crab off his partially-submerged plate, hissing and sputtering as they stepped all over him in an effort to stay dry, and using his body as a springboard to leap out of the fountain and head for the rest of the food. "Stop it! Ow! It hurts! …They're really angry! …Hey, don't bite me….That's a bad kitty!" Hammer hollered, abandoning all dignity as he rolled back and forth, trying to dislodge the cats, prompting them to dig in with their claws to avoid being thrown off into the water.

All the guests watched with slack jaws, and even the security personnel seemed not to know what to think. It didn't take long for the cats to abandon Hammer and make a beeline for the food, which they gorged on greedily. Eventually, some guards regained their wits and began shooing the cats, which scattered with their mouthfuls of shrimp and pâté, and escaped the building through the door leading to the pool and courtyard.

Justin Hammer finally regained his footing, shakily rising from the water with three cats still clinging to his ruined suit. He looked frightful, with his hair sticking up, glasses askew, and suit shredded and soaked. A suspicious urine smell lingered in the air. _Perhaps_ it was from the cats.

A few people managed to help him extricate himself from the animals, but one particularly stubborn Siamese was too quick for the rescuers, and kept reattaching itself to Hammer's chest. Its noisy squalls echoed loudly in the dumbfounded silence.

Tony laughed so hard that Laurel was afraid he would topple over the railing. Every time Laurel stopped giggling, one glance at him set her off again. "Oh my God, did you see his face? And that last cat….Look, it keeps trying to follow him. I may pass out from too much joy," Tony gasped. "Conan was so right. There really_ is_ nothing better than '_to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women_'…and his lamentations were louder than any woman's I've ever heard."

Laurel's eyes sparkled with mirth as she surveyed the inventor's blissful expression. When he turned his admiring gaze on her, she couldn't help but preen a little. The whole incident hadn't lasted more than a couple of minutes, but had seemed much, much longer. The rest of the guests had lost their gobsmacked expressions and were twittering excitedly amongst themselves. Christine Everhart had approached Justin Hammer with her notepad, and seemed to be pressing him for comments, which the bedraggled CEO appeared reluctant to give. All of the cats had disappeared into the night. If it hadn't been for Hammer's condition, the few splashes of water on the tile, and a table picked clean of meat and dairy products, one might never have believed they had been there at all.

"Hands down, that is the funniest thing I've ever seen. Ever….You didn't 'set him up with an appetizer'; you _made _him the appetizer. And I got it all on my phone," the engineer related proudly.

She grinned brightly, soaking up every ounce of his pleasure and luxuriating in it. "Where did all the cats come from?" he inquired, watching the commotion taking place below.

"I called all the ones in the immediate area. They've gone back where they came from now. Some of them were people's pets, but more than a few were feral. Hammer may need to get a few injections," Laurel answered, feeling slightly guilty over that last part.

Tony had no such qualms. "May that be the fate of all our enemies!" the inventor retorted gleefully.

When the witch favored him with a sardonic look, he protested cheekily, "Hey, this is war, Glinda. We burn the fields, kill the livestock and take no prisoners. We engineers aren't ones for half-measures. And on that note, I'm uploading the video onto YouTube right now," Tony snickered, leaning over so she could read the caption he had added.

"'_Justin Hammer and the Running of the Cats_'," Laurel recited, and with a swift grin, she added, "I love it….But you didn't post it under your own account, did you?"

"What do you think?" he retorted fondly. "I'm drunk, not crazy."

All at once, they heard a clatter on the stairwell, and looked up to see an exhausted, but clearly eager Spock, about to race down into the reception area. With its keen ears, the dog must have caught wind of the commotion caused by the cats and tried to join the party. Unfortunately for Spock, Tony had the penthouse, and the little dog had had to escape the room and then run all the way down.

"Spock?" Tony called out in surprise, and the dog scooted to a halt and swiveled its head in his direction, having the good grace to look sheepish.

Slinking towards their alcove, the dog glanced at Laurel and hopefully wagged its tails, seeming completely unsurprised to see her there. "That was very reckless of you, Spock!" Tony scolded. "You promised not to leave the room. You're too adorable to wander around here on your own. Someone could snatch you up, and then what would I do without my little Vulcan?"

The dog licked his hand apologetically, and Tony scooped him into his lap, careless of his expensive trousers. "He must have very sharp ears to have heard the cats from so far away," the witch remarked, allowing him to sniff her hand and then scratching behind his floppy ear.

"He does. He practically has sonar," the inventor bragged. "Hey Spock, watch this video."

He held his phone out to the dog, which watched attentively, its little throat rumbling with a low growl. "The fires of rage burn hot in the heart of this puppy," Tony observed to Laurel; before turning to Spock and saying, "I'm going to take you back upstairs, and this time I expect you to stay there! If you promise to be good, I'll let you watch _Beethoven_ again, but then you have to go to sleep. I'll be out late. I'm on a date, Spock."

"It's not a date," Laurel objected halfheartedly before she could censor herself.

Tony met her eyes, and his glistened with such intensity that the witch glanced away. "You're right. It's not. I was just kidding...I mean, you and me? That would be impossible…completely crazy. I'm with Pepper and about to push up daisies. You're an immortal, magical goddess, and I don't even know your name….I should stop drinking and _definitely_ stop talking now….But hypothetically, if this _were_ a date, it would be the best date _ever_," the inventor affirmed with an ironic tilt of his lips that made her hands shake with nerves even as she questioned whether he had meant a word of his declaration.

He rose abruptly from his chair, still holding Spock, and asked earnestly, "By the way, if anything happens to me, will you take care of him? You made him, and he likes you. You'd understand him better than Pepper would."

Laurel suspected that Spock wasn't the only one that she understood better than Pepper did.

"Of course, but I'm not going to let anything happen to you," she objected.

When he turned towards her, his smile was a brittle, ugly thing. "Well, you know how it is with us 'muggles'. We're such flimsy creatures, always just one tumble on the stairs away from death."

"On that note, take the elevator," she shot back drily, before adding in a slightly troubled tone, "I never thought anything good or bad of the word 'muggle' before, but now I'm finding it…unpleasant to hear as a descriptor for you."

He shrugged one shoulder and murmured, "'_That which we call a rose…_'"

"Hurry back," she demanded, suddenly unwilling to let the elevator doors come between them, but hesitant to follow him into his bedroom while she was so close to making a pass at him.

"Why?" he asked playfully, having regained his good humor, and tilting his head as though he needed to be convinced.

"Because I'm far from finished with you tonight," the witch rejoined, and even she knew that the words hadn't come out nearly as innocent as she'd intended.

He swallowed and nodded sharply, pressing the button with one elegant finger and watching as the doors closed. Laurel sighed and tilted her head back. It shocked her that she hadn't even noticed her surroundings until that moment. The hotel was beautiful and opulent, with marble Corinthian columns surmounted by a lit glass dome. Rich Persian carpets decorated the floors. The walls were covered with gilded plaster molded in intricate designs. Crystal chandeliers dazzled every few yards. The hotel was the finest she'd ever seen, but she hadn't noticed or cared a whit while Tony's bright eyes had been sparkling back at her.

Absently, she poured herself another glass of water, but before she brought it to her lips, the engineer had returned, smiling with something akin to relief when he spotted her sitting where he'd left her. "I got him to settle down. He was really fired up though. Spock's never met a cat, but he's heard a lot of bad things about them. And he_ really_ wanted a piece of one. I've tried to get him to see all sides of the issue; but unfortunately, most of the pro-dog books and movies out there are simultaneously anti-cat. Now he's prejudiced, which is ironic, because he has a lot of cat-like traits for a dog," Tony declared to an increasingly-bemused Laurel.

Suddenly, his eyes brightened wickedly. "Wait a minute—we aren't limited by the people here at this party. We can prank anyone, right? You can teleport!"

She gazed raptly at his mischievous face and purred, "Who did you have in mind?"

"Just a second….I have to get the coordinates from Jarvis," he said, pulling out his phone and typing rapidly.

The AI's voice came through the speaker, as serene and classy as always, "Mr. Stark, I must advise against whatever you're planning. You sound intoxicated, and the senator will not be forgiving."

"You're killing my buzz, Jarvis," the inventor scolded.

"I apologize, sir," Jarvis replied demurely, but Laurel almost thought she detected amusement in his voice.

"See you later, Jarvis," Tony called.

"Good night, sir. And please do tell your magical companion good night for me as well," the AI replied knowingly.

"Now that was uncanny," Laurel murmured.

When they finally had the address, Laurel made him show her a satellite photo of the property. "I can't go somewhere I've never been without an image to hold in mind," she explained in response to his raised eyebrow.

She then wasted no time in casting a Disillusionment Charm over Tony. He exclaimed delightedly, but they ran into a bit of trouble when they tried to rise in order to hold onto each other for the Apparition. Quite a bit of unnecessary groping took place, but finally Laurel had her arms around his waist, wondered whether he always smelled this good, and teleported them to their destination. They arrived in a large garden next to an Olympic-sized pool with a waterfall. "I guess the senator's doing alright for himself," Laurel mused aloud.

To Tony's endless delight, Stern was hosting a party. "Ooh, I know that guy. And that one. A lot of these people were at my hearing the other day. He must be trying to drum up more support…which means that the press is likely to be here," he whispered, his lips entirely too close to the shell of her ear.

"I can lure them outside with fireworks," she whispered. "Do you have any ideas for a prank?"

She had considered tossing a few Dungbombs, but was certain they could do better. "How are you with illusions?" Tony asked suddenly.

Laurel couldn't see him, but could tell by his tone of voice that he had something particularly good in mind. The witch felt for his hand and gave it a squeeze. "I could trick the eyes of a few, but not this whole group. That would take skill I can't even imagine," she opined.

"That's perfect. A few is more than enough. The pool has given me the greatest idea," he began, and outlined his plan to her, causing the witch to gape with astonished joy at the scope of his ambition.

"Who would guess you were so diabolical?" she replied admiringly, and then, with a devious smirk, whispered, "Watch this."

She lit a WWW firework and stepped back, watching as it exploded overhead and painted the night sky with glittering sparkles. It wasn't anything too ornate that would make muggles suspicious, but was designed to last several minutes, so firework enthusiasts wouldn't have to buy and set off as many.

"This is like Make-A-Wish for adults," Tony murmured in an awed voice.

"What?" the witch asked, tilting her head towards him, her breath fanning across his cheek.  
"Nothing," he amended quickly.

The house quickly emptied, everyone standing around the huge terrace and watching the impromptu display. One daring woman removed her heels and dangled her legs in the pool, and several others followed her example. Laurel caught sight of Sen. Stern standing beside two brigadier generals of the air force in their dress uniforms and a former Chief of Naval Operations.

"I'm going to create the illusion now. Only you and I will see it…and Stern, of course….Here we go," she breathed, and closed her eyes, envisioning exactly what she wanted and making it so.

Tony's small gasp told her that she had succeeded, and she raised her head to survey the delightful pandemonium about to take place. Stern stood right beside the pool, and as the fireworks finally died out, his eyes were drawn to a huge dark shape in the water. An erect dorsal fin cut the surface, and the light from the Tiki torches gleamed off rows of razor-sharp teeth in the fish's gaping maw. Its body must have been at least four feet high, and it stretched the length of a pickup truck, moving its tail side-to-side and inexorably heading for the kicking legs of the party-goers.

Stern paled and dropped his drink, drawing the concerned gaze of everyone around him. Laurel and Tony spotted the exact moment the senator realized he could be sued if anyone was eaten on his property. "Shark! Everybody, get out of the water!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

His guests stared reflexively at the pool, but saw nothing but tile and transparent water. Someone giggled nervously at his pronouncement, and a few others joined him. An old man muttered amusedly, "I don't think I've ever been_ that_ drunk."

Stern turned towards the chatting women, gaily wetting their toes, and bleated, "It's coming! It's going to eat you. It's huge. The size of a bus! Oh, God. Move! Move! Move! My insurance doesn't cover guests getting eaten."

Laurel could feel Tony's shoulders shaking with mirth, and had to hold back her own giggle when Stern waddled towards the women, giving the pool a wide berth, his square arse swaying amusingly. When he reached them, he began roughly hauling them up by their arms and tossing them behind him onto the stone patio in a pile, prompting shrieks of outrage from the socialites.

Laurel made the 'shark' swim back and forth menacingly, keeping its cold black eyes fixed on Stern. When several men came forward and began objecting to his handling of their wives, Stern paced like one demented. "Don't you see it?" he demanded. "It's right there, _looking_ at me. Stark is responsible for this!"

"For what?" a colonel asked dubiously.

"For putting a f****** six meter shark in my pool! What the hell else would I be talking about, s*** for brains?" Stern spat, forgetting himself entirely in his agitation.

"Just calm down, senator. I think you may have had a little too much to drink," someone soothed.

"Stark's trying to kill me! You're all witnesses! …He's the only one rich enough to pull this off, the smug bastard. Johnson, get the Fish and Wildlife Service people on the phone right now! I will _not _have a monster shark swimming around in my backyard. This is simply intolerable! I never should have built my second home so far south. You don't have to put up with this kind of s*** in Pennsylvania," he raged.

"Senator, there's nothing in the pool," his aide said warningly, trying to take his arm and lead him into the house.

Stern turned on him disbelievingly. "Are you calling me a liar? Do you think I'm making it up? Do you think I'm crazy? …Or are you just trying to f*** with me? If you don't think anything's there, then why don't you go take a hop off the high dive, you little prick?"

The other man pinched his lips together in irritation, but didn't contradict his boss.

Laurel smothered her laughter with a hand, propping herself up against Tony so that she wouldn't roll on the ground howling with laughter. Stern had just figuratively shown his arse to nearly a hundred of the most important people in Washington D.C.; and the governor of Virginia didn't look very happy at his disparaging remarks about his state. "I'm going to up the ante," she whispered.

"Oh…yes…please….Do it and I'll build you a shrine," he replied, in between bouts of hysterical laughter.

All at once, Stern's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. According to his perspective, the massive shark had just approached the pool steps and was lifting itself out of the water with its pectoral fins in a maneuver no real shark would have been capable of. "Oh my God, it's a mutant land shark! We're not supposed to have those in the United States," he wailed. "It's headed right towards us! We have to get in the house and barricade all the doors! If you have guns, use them!"

With those words, he raced inside, faster than anyone had seen him move in his life. A disbelieving silence hung in the air, and his aide finally cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "I…er…I'm very sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. The senator isn't feeling well tonight….More wine, anyone?"

Laurel and Tony had tried to follow Stern, because they _really _wanted to hear his conversation with the police and the Fish and Wildlife representative, but were so overcome with laughter that they couldn't maintain their footing. Laurel dropped their invisibility and cast a Notice-Me-Not Charm instead, because she couldn't stand being unable to see his expression. Holding onto each other, they staggered towards the doorway, dissolving into giggles each time they glanced up and caught the other's eye. They only made it about a third of the way before collapsing on a stone bench in utter bliss.

"You gorgeous little trickster goddess! You're making all my dreams come true," Tony gushed, looking at her with such fascination that Laurel caught her breath, and secretly admitted that there were very few laws she wouldn't break to inspire that look again.

"I'm hungry," Tony said suddenly.

Laurel cocked her head in thought and said, "You know what I could really go for right now? Gelato."

His brown eyes glittered with delight. "And they call _me_ a genius," he declared admiringly.

"Where should we go? I doubt we're going to find any of the good stuff in Virginia…and I don't really even know where we are," the witch admitted, shrugging off her disorientation. Such were the pitfalls of Apparating while intoxicated.

"I've been dying to try the Gelateria I Caruso," Tony said, brandishing his phone at her to show a picture.

"In Rome?" she inquired.

"Why not?" he replied, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Laurel gave in easily. "I've always wanted to go to Rome," she mused, quickly adjusting one of her strappy heels.

"There's no place better. We'll have to come back during the day sometime when everything's open. You've got to see the Pantheon, and St. Peter's, and the Borghese Gallery….There's just so much. You'll love it. I promise," he related enthusiastically.

Laurel regarded him with warm eyes. "Then we'd better toss a coin in the Trevi Fountain before we leave if we want to come back. That's the legend, isn't it?"

"So it is," the inventor returned with a smile. "I'll toss all the coins I've got for the chance at another night like tonight."

* * *

As they sat side-by-side on the Spanish Steps and companionably ate their ice cream, Tony pulled out his phone. "I'm going to change my ringtone to the theme from _Jaws_," he confided, grinning in secret satisfaction.

The engineer suddenly snickered.

"What is it?" she asked, intrigued.

"People are already commenting on Hammer's video. Some of the things they're saying are hilarious, but pretty crude. This person must know him. He says, '_Hey, Hammer, it looks like you got a lot of pussy tonight. In a record-breaking first, some of them actually appear wet_'….I sort of wish I'd thought of that," Tony admitted with a low chuckle.

Laurel snorted and held her cup steady while he dipped in his spoon to try a bite of her strawberry gelato. She didn't mind. She'd already stolen two bites of his amazingly creamy dark chocolate.

"Oh, my. Hammer's really taking some heat for this," she observed, leaning into his warm shoulder and reading the remarks. "This guy says, '_Hope his weapons are tougher than he is_'. Another one goes, '_Animals really can sense evil'_. Burn…._Ooh,_ listen to this, '_The only thing that scares Justin Hammer more than budget cuts is a basket full of kittens_'."

Tony gazed raptly at the little witch as she forgot her gelato and placed one of her hands on his wrist to get a better view of the screen.

She turned questioning, slightly wistful eyes on him. "Should we getting back? Your girlfriend is probably wondering where you've run off to," she murmured finally, her fingers reluctantly trailing over his wrist bone until they dropped away entirely.

Tony nearly grimaced at the gentle reminder that he and Pepper were…something. They had some form of amorphous, bloodless relationship. "That's unlikely. She doesn't need me to sign many papers anymore, now that she's CEO," he said a little bitterly.

"Why _did_ you sign over your company to her?" Laurel asked interestedly, remembering that Fury had charged Romanoff with finding the answer to that question.

"My buzz is wearing off," he complained playfully, avoiding the query.

She dropped the issue, reasoning that if he practically allowed her to robe herself in secrecy that she ought to permit him a few mysteries of his own. "Well, I can't have such a travesty occurring on my watch," she quipped lightly, rising to her feet and offering him a hand up.

They made a quick trip to the Trevi Fountain, where Tony and Laurel made the obligatory wish to return to Rome, and then took turns tossing in coins, making humorously outlandish wishes. When Laurel was about to throw in her last quarter, the inventor caught her hand. With a strange intensity, he asked, "What's the one thing that you want most?"

Taken off-guard, she wrapped her arms around herself and babbled, "I wish that we could be happy like this all the time. It would be terrifyingly lonely to live for all eternity. But I don't think it would be so bad if I could do it with someone like you."

Tony immediately immersed himself in the fantasy. "We could have a few good centuries…or millennia. Right now my life's too short, and yours is too long," he mused.

"I wish we could do away with the disparity," Laurel murmured, staring hard at the fountain as though by wishing hard enough, she could will it to do her bidding.

"That's what I wish, too," he whispered, and looked torn for several moments before favoring her with a broken smile and adding, "Let's toss it together."

"But our wish is impossible," she objected.

"Probably, but I'm feeling a bit more superstitious now that I know magic is real….And I don't think it ever hurts to articulate what you want…because then, we can try to '_find a way or make one_'. Besides, in spite of everything, I've always been lucky," Tony confided, and as he spoke the words, he realized that he actually believed them.

* * *

They took one last detour, because Tony figured that he might as well prank all of his enemies while he and Laurel were out marauding. Invisible once more, the two of them Apparated into the computer room in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters. Sneaking into the adjoining break room, they quickly found Fury's mug, which displayed his name and the agency's logo. Laurel kept the name so he'd know it was his; but, at Tony's behest, changed the image of the spread eagle to text that read, '_I like big butts_'. They thought about putting Stern's picture next to the words, but decided that might give Fury too many clues.

* * *

When they returned to Monaco, the furor caused by the cats seemed to have died down. About a third of the guests had disappeared, but Laurel spotted Pepper and Romanoff, talking animatedly together, no doubt wondering where Tony had gone.

She and the inventor each had another two drinks, feeling very mellow and pleased with themselves. Laurel had taken the pins out of her hair and Tony had loosened his tie and undone his top two shirt buttons. Not quite wanting to call it a night, Laurel suddenly proposed naughtily, "Would you like me to throw the cat in with the pigeons?"

"Do you even have to ask?" Tony exclaimed, interest instantly rekindling.

"I used my winnings from the Tri-Wizard Tournament to become the silent partner in a joke shop in my former world," she relayed conversationally. "This is a trick that the owners invented."

She conjured three golden apples and was careful not to touch them. "I've placed a True Love Spell on them. Each apple will change depending on who holds it. It's inscribed with the name of whoever is currently touching it, and declares the name and address of their soulmate.

"I also cast a spell on the apples so that they'll disappear as soon as no one's looking at them. I don't want anyone examining them too closely. Because they're made of metal, people will assume that they're mechanical and have some sort of advanced algorithm."

"That's incredible," Tony breathed. "How do they select the names? Because people don't really have one destined soulmate. That's just illogical."

"Well, it gives them their best counterpart—supposedly, their 'true equal'. It won't match them to a dead person. This is just a party trick really. No one I know has ever taken it seriously," she rejoined a little too blithely. "Would you like to take a peek?"

He recoiled as if she'd tried to hand him a tarantula. "What if no name appears?" he ventured, watching as she tossed the apples down the stairs, where they rolled among the feet of the partygoers.

"I've never seen that happen before, but theoretically it's possible," the witch admitted, shrugging one elegant shoulder. "You asked for chaos earlier….This is me delivering."

Both of them leaned forward, keenly surveying the scene. One man lifted an apple that had bounced against his shoe. After a few beats, he said, "This can't be right….It has my wife's name on it."

His friend peered over his shoulder and took it from him. "No it doesn't," he objected, "It has the name of my sister's best friend."

Laurel snickered and whispered in Tony's ear, "It gives all the married people the names of their spouses. Technically, they _do_ have common ground with them because of their shared history….They may not really be their closest match, but I'm not a home-wrecker."

"This is some serious magic," Tony muttered in reply, watching as the people downstairs lost their composure one by one.

Some scoffed and tossed the apple to someone else. Others furiously wrote down the information on cocktail napkins. Some stared too long, surreptitiously trying to memorize the data. Surprisingly, Justin Hammer was still there, sporting a few Band-Aids. He seemed intrigued by his apple, and tucked it into his pocket. That left two still floating around the room, and everyone seemed to want to have a look, however reluctant they pretended to be.

Tony cringed when he saw Pepper pick one up, because he knew in the depths of his soul that hers would not have his name scratched into it. The fair-skinned redhead flushed hotly at whatever she read, and dropped the apple like a hot potato.

In the midst of the chaos, Laurel noticed one face turned towards the balcony. It was Romanoff. The two women stared at each other in surprise, and the witch silently cursed herself for forgetting to add the privacy charms when she'd dropped her invisibility and Tony's disillusionment. But Romanoff had never seen her before and had no idea who she was. The spy probably just assumed that she was some bimbo having a drink with Tony Stark. There was absolutely no reason to be alarmed. And yet, Laurel still felt prickles of apprehension and found herself seriously considering an Obliviate.

"Your spy just spotted us," she whispered softly to Tony.

The inventor sighed. "I suppose I should go make the rounds at least once…just so people know I was here. Are you coming to the race tomorrow? I'm sponsoring one of the cars. Should be a good time," he lured.

Smiling gently at the invitation, she replied, "No, I don't think so. It's not a good idea for us to be seen together; and trying to remain invisible in crowded stands is really more of a challenge than I'm up for. I'm going to Ireland to try to find a few potions ingredients, but I'll be there to greet you when you get back to the States."

"Will you stay visible?" he asked hopefully.

"No. It's back to business as usual, I'm afraid," she replied wryly. "Tonight was a dream-a bloody good one-but nothing more."

He felt her fingers gently caress the back of his hand, and then she Disapparated. Tony took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to reason away the sudden wave of grief and desolation he felt when she disappeared.

* * *

With a false smile and a bit of leftover courage from the firewhiskey, the inventor strolled downstairs and spoke to a few people, greeting Pepper and casually mentioning that he'd gone back up to his room for a bit. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rushman—no, _Romanoff_—pale slightly as she took one of the apples into her hand. Then, looking more flustered than he had ever seen her, she snatched up her purse and rushed out of the room.

Hoping to read what her apple had said, he used his pocket handkerchief to snag it out from under the chair where it had rolled when she'd dropped it to the ground in horror. Her reaction to the apple's message had been intriguing to say the least. Tony felt it burning into his pocket the whole way to his hotel room, and his fingers twitched just a little as he pulled it out and held it up to the lamp. When nothing happened, he delicately touched it with his skin. He stared, turned it over, and stared again at the small bright object that had just confirmed his secret fear. It was blank.

* * *

Out of curiosity, Laurel apparated into the assassin's room to wait for her and do a bit of snooping. She didn't find anything at all out of the ordinary, which just proved how good the assassin really was; Laurel knew she had guns and magazines hidden, but they hadn't been placed anywhere obvious. And the witch _knew_ about hiding places. She had grown up with the Dursleys, after all.

When Romanoff finally arrived about twenty minutes later, Laurel stood quietly in a corner, watching the Russian pace furiously while in the middle of a rather intense phone call. "I'm telling you, I've been compromised. Someone in Monaco knows who I am, knows who Clint is and about our friendship. They even had his correct address—the one only S.H.I.E.L.D. knows," she exclaimed in agitation.

Romanoff paused to listen impatiently to the person on the other line. "No," she said tiredly. "It wasn't Stark….Yes, I'm sure. It's not even his style….Right, sir."

Laurel smiled wickedly. So, the spy was talking to her boss, the inestimable Mr. Fury. Well, anything that stirred the hornet's nest at S.H.I.E.L.D. without pointing to her or Tony was only a good thing. Knowing that she had plenty of fodder for sweet dreams, she popped back to her room. If she had stayed just a moment longer, she would have heard Romanoff say, "There's another thing, sir. Stark was drinking with someone tonight. It was the girl….That's right—the one he's been searching for. They looked _very _friendly, but didn't leave together."

"This is an interesting development," Fury said, as Romanoff put him on speaker phone and began changing out of her cocktail dress. "I'll have all outgoing flights checked so we can see what identity she traveled under….Something else is bothering me, Romanoff. I'm sure you've heard about the drawing that someone did with a Sharpie on the back of my head?"

"I did hear about it, sir," she acknowledged, stifling a smirk.

He detected the amusement in her voice because he continued in a slightly more irritable tone, "Two things concern me. The first is that someone was able to get close enough to me to make an elaborate, bi-colored drawing on my very sensitive _skull_, and the second is that whoever did it knows about S.H.I.E.L.D. That little shield drawn on the underpants was an obvious jab at the agency, and not a joke that one of our own would make.

"I can't accurately pinpoint the time of the drawing to our meeting in the restaurant, even though that's when I suspect it happened. The footage from there is useless, since I deliberately chose a seat away from the security cameras. Our techs have looked at the recordings from the bar, and ruled out every single person that entered the door. No one but the two of us knew about our meeting, and nobody followed me. There was a nearly empty stretch of highway behind me for most of the drive, and no one entered the restaurant after me until you came in.

"The odds than someone just chanced upon us there and also knew who we were are infinitesimal. But _you_ came straight from Stark Industries. Stark knows about S.H.I.E.L.D. And he's been communicating with some strange operative…for all we know, she's a mutant working for Hydra….Do you have any thoughts?" he inquired finally.

Romanoff had narrowed her eyes at his assessment. '_When one eliminates the impossible…_' "I don't think anyone followed me. People_ don't_ follow me….But if she's a mutant, we can't rule it out. And actually, this whole week has been a little weird. I kept feeling like I was being watched. I thought I was just paranoid, but once I could have sworn that someone had crept up right behind me. I actually did a roundhouse kick in the middle of the hallway, but no one was there…or _visible_," the assassin murmured.

As an afterthought, she added, "Incidentally, I didn't see the woman or Tony Stark for most of the evening. He was there at the beginning of the party, drinking at the bar and looking bored, but suddenly disappeared about an hour in. He didn't leave through the front door. And then, a little while ago, I saw the two of them at a table up on the balcony. I would swear that the second-level tables had been unoccupied all night. That woman looked me straight in the eye a few seconds longer than normal; and almost immediately afterwards, Stark rejoined the party by himself."

A long silence followed these revelations. At last, Fury responded, "Keep your ears and eyes open, and stay close to Stark. Be very careful, and if you see this woman again, follow her if you can."

"Right, sir," she replied, and they hung up.

* * *

Laurel had returned to her Malibu hotel to take a shower, and when she had finished and dressed in her nightclothes, she Apparated back to Monaco and braved the inventor's room. Tony's clothes had been tossed haphazardly on a chair, and she absentmindedly cleaned, pressed and hung them in the closet with magic. The man himself rested on his back, breathing softly. He had made a platform of pillows for Spock, and the dog opened its eyes and lazily observed her from its aerial view. Casting a quick Sobering Charm on Tony, she prepared to leave, but couldn't quite bring herself to move. She felt a unfamiliar ache as she gazed affectionately on his sleeping features. Laurel knew that she and the inventor had become ridiculously co-dependent in a relatively short time; but how could she help it, when he had become the primary wellspring of her fun and happiness? Before she left, she conjured a small figurine of an angry Siamese cat clinging to the back of a shark and left it on his bedside table.

Still grinning to herself and basking in the pleasant memories of the evening, Laurel readied herself for bed in her hotel half a world away. As she thought back to Tony's laughter and animated brown eyes, she couldn't help her little skip of happiness as she dove between the cool, luxurious, Egyptian cotton sheets. Laurel lay there with a smile on her face for a while, idly watching the faint, multicolored glow of a distant ship peeping between the gap in the curtains.

Part of her wished that she had had the courage to look at an apple herself, but another part felt pleased that the spell had only lasted thirty minutes, to shorten the temptation. Secretly, she dreaded seeing the name of someone from her old universe, or even worse, no name at all. She hoped that Pepper had looked at an apple, because she was fairly sure that it wouldn't have Tony's name on it. But Pepper might not be the type to give credence to something so unscientific. In fact, she might redouble her efforts with him, or not care at all, as long as she could sleep with him and have a date to important events. Laurel knew that Pepper cared about Tony, and found him handsome and familiar. Tony was wonderful, unique, the superlative man. No one would ever throw him back into the dating sea.

* * *

**The Following Morning**

"Well, if it isn't the Cat Whisperer herself," Tony declared cheerily, catching sight of a sulky Justin Hammer in the lobby the next morning.

"Very funny, Stark," the man retorted sourly, rubbing his left cheek, which still bore faint claw-marks.

The engineer eyed him for several moments before exclaiming accusingly, "Oh no! You've already heard that one today. Someone else got to you first! I know it was weaker than my usual material, but it just begged to be said….But that's all beside the point. I told a _stale joke_. How mortifying. Good thing it was only Justin Hammer, or I'd never live it down."

The inventor wandered off, outraged betrayal written all over his face. Justin Hammer wished very hard that something bad would happen to him.

* * *

Hammer got his wish. In a moment of wild impetuosity, Tony had demanded to drive his own racecar. Focused on the risks inherent in the race, he had been shocked and unprepared when a huge man in primitive, pseudo-Iron Man armor had stalked onto the track, using long, whiplike cords that sizzled with electricity to wreak destruction. Tony had never seen any technology like it. The weapons cut vehicles in half like they were made of pudding rather than metal.

It didn't take long for the engineer to realize that he was the target of the attack, and barely managed to reach his Iron Man suit in its portable suitcase. He took a beating before he managed to don his armor, but won the battle.

His heart sank when realized how high his palladium levels must have climbed during the fight. He flinched away from the agonizing knowledge that the attack had just shaved a few precious weeks off his life. Tony knew that the whole debacle had been displayed on live television, which was extremely worrisome. He was well aware of how weak and helpless he had looked before he'd reached his armor. No doubt every wolf in the world would think they were dealing with a crippled sheepdog. He had an ominous feeling that no good would come from his 'victory' today.

* * *

The aftermath of Vanko's attack was a long, unpleasant blur. Tony was forced to speak with one reporter after another. He actually felt slightly grateful for Romanoff, because she headed off the barrage of phone calls that had been coming in for him from various shareholders, lawmakers, his attorney…the list was never-ending.

He presented a brave front, submitting to interviews with quips and a smile, and gritting his teeth as he bled into his suit from where his skin had caught on a piece of jagged metal. That afternoon, he had dropped by his hotel room, cleaned himself up as well as he could, and then gone out to pay a visit to his attacker in the local jail. It had been a rather creepy experience. Tony had become used to people disliking him, but the raw hate coming from Vanko had been unsettling. He didn't even _know_ Tony. The engineer had done nothing to earn this level of concentrated malevolence. What was wrong with this man that he was willing to spend the rest of his life in prison on the off-chance that he was able to harm the inventor's reputation?

After a brief conversation with his attacker, who had stared and smirked eerily at him the whole time, Tony had left unsatisfied, feeling even more unsettled than before. He had a logical mind; and it bothered him to meet an enemy that couldn't be reasoned with, an intelligent man filled with such implacable rage.

That evening he went to dinner with Pepper and a large entourage; and it took everything he had to laugh and smile and be a witty companion, but he managed it. He always did. Tony didn't know how he would have been able to cope with the day he had had if he'd woken up with a hangover. He smiled wanly when he recalled the night before. That little magic-user had certainly been something. The engineer wasn't used to having the people close to him tempt his wildness. Usually only strangers encouraged him to do crazy things. It was surprisingly liberating to pursue his mad schemes with an equally keen companion by his side-someone he could trust to protect him if things got out of hand.

Desperate for rest and a chance to recovery his equilibrium, the inventor dutifully stayed until the party broke up and it was time to escort Pepper back to the hotel. As he slipped his keycard in the door and entered the blessedly cool room, Tony found himself suddenly facing Laurel, who had materialized out of thin air and appeared on his couch. She immediately leapt to her feet and strode towards him, taking his hands and tugging him gently forward into the light. He numbly allowed her manhandling, noting that he had never seen her eyes look so stormy. "I thought I'd cornered the market when it came to attracting trouble. Now I find myself wishing I'd been right," she muttered in agitation.

"It was no big deal. Bad guys will be bad guys," Tony replied carelessly, trying to give her some reassurance.

Trying to give it right back, she looked him straight in the eye and said quietly, "You handled yourself well."

He scoffed. Vanko had come out of _nowhere_. Tony had been showing off, behaving recklessly. It had occurred to him that the rest of his short life wasn't likely to top the night before. The witch had been right. It_ had_ just been a dream; and his former optimism beside the Trevi Fountain had seemed very far away, when he had the slow slide into death to look forward to. With that painful thought, he had seized the opportunity to play a little roulette game with fate. If an accident happened on the track…well, there were worse things, like what he could expect without intervention.

"_Listen_ to me," she urged, taking hold of his shoulders and breaking him out of his spiraling train of thought. "I don't know what you were doing down on that course. You took an incredible risk that wasn't even _remotely_ acceptable, but it may have worked out for the best. If you had remained in the packed stands, that psycho might have forced his way towards you through the crowd, killing people in the process. But it's over now.

"And I'm so proud of you, so impressed, and relieved. It was clever to keep a suit nearby, and you moved quickly and kept your head. It appears that all that boxing paid off."

Her words warmed him and melted the jagged edges that had formed around his thoughts. He was very aware of the two points of contact between them; and her light grip on his arms felt like all that was anchoring him to reality. She suddenly noticed that she hadn't released her hold, and dropped her hands with alacrity. Tony swayed with exhaustion, and collapsed onto the sofa. "Who was he?" she asked, concerned by his uncharacteristic silence.

"Ivan Vanko," he said tiredly. "I'd never even heard of him, but apparently he's sworn a vendetta against me."

She blinked in surprise and the engineer teased halfheartedly, "What can I say? Everyone wants a piece of me. It's ridiculous. Beautiful sorceresses spy on me in the shower. Inferior engineers declare blood-feuds. It's how they show they care."

With an eye roll and a twitch of her lips, Laurel dropped down beside him, leaving most of a couch cushion between them. "So he was a competitor?" she inquired, glancing over his immaculate dinner attire.

It suited him, but the same casual grace was just as present when he was wearing his grease-covered work clothes.

"Apparently, his dad had a beef with mine about some project they worked on together, and Vanko Jr. blames him for dissolving their partnership and getting him deported. He's angry and bitter, and wants to hurt someone. Dad's not around anymore, so he figures I make a decent substitute. I think the fact that I've become famous and successful has just poured more gas on the flame," Tony recounted, frowning once again at the other man's utter lack of sense.

"What a nutjob. I'm just relieved that you contained him," the witch averred, turning towards him with one leg tucked under the other.

She could tell that he wasn't quite himself. No doubt the day's events had shaken him emotionally as well as physically. "I wish I'd stayed for the race," she said fiercely. "Although it's probably better I didn't. I would have exposed magic on national television; I'd be so preoccupied with trying to kill him."

He chuckled and closed his eyes. "We can't have that….Everyone else getting to see you for free, when I've had to work damn hard for the privilege."

He opened his eyes again when he heard her edgy tone. "I heard about the fight a couple of hours ago. I was in Kilkenny, and some people were talking about it in the street. I found an internet café and pulled up the footage. It looked like you took a pretty bad hit against the torn frame of the car. And you've got to be black and blue after all the knocks you took trying to get hold of your suit," the witch quested.

"It's alright," he shrugged. "I have a gash on my back, but I'm pretty sure it's stopped bleeding. Believe me when I say I've had much worse."

"I do believe you," she replied darkly, "but I'm trying not to think about it for the sake of my sanity."

He looked up in curiosity when he heard a clinking noise. She had just placed two jars and two vials on the coffee table. "What're those?" he slurred tiredly.

"Bruise Balm, Wound-Cleaning Potion, a blood-replenisher and an optional sleeping draught," she answered matter-of-factly.

"You mean the others aren't optional?" he joked, unscrewing one of the lids and examining the thick yellow paste.

Laurel sighed and gently took the jar out of his hands, unbuttoning his cuffs in the process. "I know you're going to make me regret saying it like this, but would you mind taking off your jacket and shirt?"

"Why, not at all," he beamed, making swift work of the buttons. "Should I leave the tie on?" he asked mischievously.

She shot him a dry look.

"You know, this is not _at all_ how I foresaw first baring my beautiful body to you. The scenario is all wrong," he continued, pleased that he'd gotten under her skin.

"In what way?" she asked amusedly.

"Well, there was supposed to be a hot tub," he replied with a sly sidelong glance at her.

Tony moved to slide off his jacket, and winced in sudden agony. His muscles had locked up, and his back felt like one large bruise. "Let me," Laurel interrupted; and before the inventor as much as blinked, he found himself shirtless.

Leaning around him for a better vantage point, the witch hissed through her teeth when she caught a look at his back. "What's wrong?" he asked anxiously.

"You're pretty well mangled, Tony," she answered, already carefully siphoning off the dirt and dried blood.

"I don't know how you were still moving around with all of this damage….I've got to clean this gash. Do you want a pain potion?" she inquired, already knowing he would refuse.

"No. Don't waste your supplies on me," the inventor replied dismissively.

"If you asked, I'd pour out every potion I have just so you could admire their colors. And you know what? I wouldn't consider it a waste…because it's you," she vowed, feeling him tense under her hands as she poured Wound-Cleaning Potion on his ugly gash.

He stayed quiet, and she began knitting the sliced skin back together. "I want to set up protective charms at your house," Laurel said abruptly, distracting him from the eerie feeling of his skin regenerating with unnatural speed.

"And _I_ want _you_ to wear a tracking device. How about a trade?" he shot back impudently.

The witch gave a long-suffering sigh, and began spreading the thick bruise paste over his back and shoulders. He had a deceptively strong build, with muscular arms and a lean, beautiful torso. Mindful of her task, she reverently ran her hands over the patches of discoloration that marred the perfection of his form. "I won't agree to that, but I am open to bargaining, if the terms are right. The whole world has a healthy respect for Iron Man, but has seen that Tony Stark is vulnerable. I just want you safe when you're at home and to be able to let your guard down," she explained, too serious about the subject to let it drop.

He didn't reply for a few moments, surprised at how powerfully affected he was by the offer. Unable to articulate what he was feeling, he cleared his throat and asked, "What sort of magic are we talking here?"

Laurel stared in naked wonder at the skin in front of her, which was gradually regaining its normal hue. "What?" she asked, momentarily flustered before his words penetrated her fog. "Oh…I'd like to construct some magical wards that would prevent anyone from seeing inside or entering the property if they have malicious intentions. I'd also want to set something up to disintegrate any sort of ballistae aimed at your house."

He hummed in response, no doubt thinking of what he could ask in exchange. Tony surprised her when he huffed out a laugh and confessed, "I know this is the perfect opportunity to gain a concession, but when you're being so good to me, I just can't bring myself to do it. Curse my irritating sense of fair play!"

"There's a reason you're a superhero, Tony," she rejoined in amusement. "And I almost hate to tell you this, because Merlin knows you don't need any encouragement, but your soft heart is every bit as appealing as your sharp mind."

Her keen eyes assessed his back, and she smiled to herself, pleased that he was healed _and_ that she'd managed to silence his ready tongue. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" she asked, moving around him and sweeping a solicitous gaze over his chest.

For a moment, he considered shielding his arc reactor from those green eyes that saw _everything_. He felt simultaneously proud and ashamed of the glowing disk, because he knew it wasn't exactly what one expected to find when looking at a man's torso. It certainly wouldn't be considered aesthetically pleasing by normal standards.

He came back to himself a little at her question. It was true that he sported a few more injuries in places covered by the remainder of his clothing, but if she left that paste, he could apply it later himself. Tony already felt a million times better than he had before she'd come. Feeling overwhelmed by gratitude and absolute trust, he burned with a sudden urge to confess his terrible secret. Looking her in the eye, he gently took her hand, which felt slightly greasy from the ointment, and placed it on his arc reactor. It felt like the moment of truth.

Tony opened his mouth to tell her about the palladium, when a knock on the door sounded as suddenly as a gunshot. At this reminder of encroaching reality, he could see her withdrawing into herself. The inventor wanted to ignore the visitor and hope they went away, but he heard Pepper's voice on the other side, "Tony, are you alright? Tony?"

He dropped his head forward in resignation. Impulsively, Laurel pressed her soft lips to his forehead before vanishing from the room. She reappeared in his bathroom to deposit the potions, and then left Monaco behind her. Tony remained still for several moments with his eyes closed, savoring that last loving gesture.

* * *

The witch Apparated to a stretch of empty beach near her hotel and started walking, trying to burn off nervous energy. How did she always forget to factor in the relevant data, like the fact that she was immortal and he wasn't, and that he already had a girlfriend? Pepper was nowhere near as spicy as her name implied, and Laurel had a tendency to forget her very existence, which was extremely unwise for the sake of her own rationality.

In fact, Pepper was probably spending every night with Tony in Monaco. She was away from home and less stressed. She'd want to have vacation sex. Laurel's nails cut into her palms at the thought. Her visceral horror momentarily surprised her, but if she was honest with herself, she had known for a while that affection had long since joined her fascination with the inventor. But there were too many reasons to count why that would be a bad idea. And Tony wanted Pepper. Even their names amalgamated in a cute way—'Pepperony'. The papers would eat it up. It seemed written in the stars. _This_, Laurel thought grimly, _is a perfect reason why one ought not to dimension travel._


End file.
